ge varieties,' answered Glaucus. 'He amuses
me...'

'And flatters--but then he pays himself well! He powders his praise
with gold-dust.'

'You often hint that he plays unfairly--think you so really?'

'My dear Glaucus, a Roman noble has his dignity to keep up--dignity is
very expensive--Clodius must cheat like a scoundrel, in order to live
like a gentleman.'

'Ha ha!--well, of late I have renounced the dice. Ah! Sallust, when I
am wedded to Ione, I trust I may yet redeem a youth of follies. We are
both born for better things than those in which we sympathize now--born
to render our worship in nobler temples than the stye of Epicurus.'

'Alas!' returned Sallust, in rather a melancholy tone, 'what do we know
more than this--life is short--beyond the grave all is dark? There is no
wisdom like that which says "enjoy".'

'By Bacchus! I doubt sometimes if we do enjoy the utmost of which life
is capable.'

'I am a moderate man,' returned Sallust, 'and do not ask "the utmost".
We are like malefactors, and intoxicate ourselves with wine and myrrh,
as we stand on the brink of death; but, if we did not do so, the abyss
would look very disagreeable. I own that I was inclined to be gloomy
until I took so heartily to drinking--that is a new life, my Glaucus.'

'Yes! but it brings us next morning to a new death.'

'Why, the next morning is unpleasant, I own; but, then, if it were not
so, one would never be inclined to read. I study betimes--because, by
the gods! I am generally unfit for anything else till noon.'

'Fie, Scythian!'

'Pshaw! the fate of Pentheus to him who denies Bacchus.'

'Well, Sallust, with all your faults, you are the best profligate I ever
met: and verily, if I were in danger of life, you are the only man in
all Italy who would stretch out a finger to save me.'

'Perhaps I should not, if it were in the middle of supper. But, in
truth, we Italians are fearfully selfish.'

'So are all men who are not free,' said Glaucus, with a sigh. 'Freedom
alone makes men sacrifice to each other.'

'Freedom, then, must be a very fatiguing thing to an Epicurean,'
answered Sallust. 'But here we are at our host's.'

As Diomed's villa is one of the most considerable in point of size of
any yet discovered at Pompeii, and is, moreover, built much according to
the specific instructions for a suburban villa laid down by the Roman
architect, it may not be uninteresting briefly to describe the plan of
the apartme