feasted a sober man for a year together—­see that they be not one iota over-roasted.  The last time, O Congrio, that I gave a banquet to my friends, when thy vanity did so boldly undertake the becoming appearance of a Melian crane—­thou knowest it came up like a stone from AEtna—­as if all the fires of Phlegethon had been scorching out its juices.  Be modest this time, Congrio—­wary and modest.  Modesty is the nurse of great actions; and in all other things, as in this, if thou wilt not spare thy master’s purse, at least consult thy master’s glory.’

’There shall not be such a coena seen at Pompeii since the days of Hercules.’

’Softly, softly—­thy cursed boasting again!  But I say, Congrio, yon homunculus—­yon pigmy assailant of my cranes—­yon pert-tongued neophyte of the kitchen, was there aught but insolence on his tongue when he maligned the comeliness of my sweetmeat shapes?  I would not be out of the fashion, Congrio.’

‘It is but the custom of us cooks,’ replied Congrio, gravely, to undervalue our tools, in order to increase the effect of our art.  The sweetmeat shape is a fair shape, and a lovely; but I would recommend my master, at the first occasion, to purchase some new ones of a...’

‘That will suffice,’ exclaimed Diomed, who seemed resolved never to allow his slave to finish his sentences.  ’Now, resume thy charge—­shine——­eclipse thyself.  Let men envy Diomed his cook—­let the slaves of Pompeii style thee Congrio the great!  Go! yet stay—­thou hast not spent all the moneys I gave thee for the marketing?’ ’"All!” alas! the nightingales’ tongues and the Roman tomacula, and the oysters from Britain, and sundry other things, too numerous now to recite, are yet left unpaid for.  But what matter? every one trusts the Archimagirus of Diomed the wealthy!’

’Oh, unconscionable prodigal!—­what waste!—­what profusion!—­I am ruined!  But go, hasten—­inspect!—­taste!—­perform!—­surpass thyself!  Let the Roman senator not despise the poor Pompeian.  Away, slave—­and remember, the Phrygian attagens.’

The chief disappeared within his natural domain, and Diomed rolled back his portly presence to the more courtly chambers.  All was to his liking—­the flowers were fresh, the fountains played briskly, the mosaic pavements were as smooth as mirrors.

‘Where is my daughter Julia?’ he asked.

‘At the bath.’

‘Ah! that reminds me!—­time wanes!—­and I must bathe also.’

Our story returns to Apaecides.  On awaking that day from the broken and feverish sleep which had followed his adoption of a faith so strikingly and sternly at variance with that in which his youth had been nurtured, the young priest could scarcely imagine that he was not yet in a dream; he had crossed the fatal river—­the past was henceforth to have no sympathy with the future; the two worlds were distinct and separate—­that which had been, from that which was to be.  To