ancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called with
tremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.

"Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from his
stupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,
which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters of
Hercules."

Sonnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound of
flutes was heard in the peristyle.

"The auletai!" shouted the guests.

Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing
a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every
step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers
playing over the holes of the instrument.

Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a
sweet melopoeia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches
and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old
acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they
watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed
rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.

Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end
of an hour the guests became bored.

"We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same
flutists who always play at your banquets, Sonnica. Since you have
fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us
see the dancers!"

"Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.

"Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant
from Actaeon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of
the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can
guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a
little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those
of celebrated Athenian performers."

Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther
end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias
had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was
disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.

"Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing
better to dissipate drunkenness."

The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no
attention to the philosopher's protests.

"I am not drunk," shoute