‘Not unlikely,’ said Glaucus; ’for he who grants a favor to one Roman, must always do it at the expense of another.  Be sure, that for every smile Titus has caused, a hundred eyes have wept.’

‘Long live Titus!’ cried Pansa, overhearing the emperor’s name, as he swept patronizingly through the crowd; ’he has promised my brother a quaestorship, because he had run through his fortune.’

‘And wishes now to enrich himself among the people, my Pansa,’ said Glaucus.

‘Exactly so,’ said Pansa.

‘That is putting the people to some use,’ said Glaucus.

’To be sure, returned Pansa.  ’Well, I must go and look after the aerarium—­it is a little out of repair’; and followed by a long train of clients, distinguished from the rest of the throng by the togas they wore (for togas, once the sign of freedom in a citizen, were now the badge of servility to a patron), the aedile fidgeted fussily away.

‘Poor Pansa!’ said Lepidus:  ’he never has time for pleasure.  Thank Heaven I am not an aedile!’

‘Ah, Glaucus! how are you? gay as ever?’ said Clodius, joining the group.

‘Are you come to sacrifice to Fortune?’ said Sallust.

‘I sacrifice to her every night,’ returned the gamester.

‘I do not doubt it.  No man has made more victims!’

‘By Hercules, a biting speech!’ cried Glaucus, laughing.

‘The dog’s letter is never out of your mouth, Sallust,’ said Clodius, angrily:  ‘you are always snarling.’

’I may well have the dog’s letter in my mouth, since, whenever I play with you, I have the dog’s throw in my hand,’ returned Sallust.

‘Hist!’ said Glaucus, taking a rose from a flower-girl, who stood beside.

‘The rose is the token of silence,’ replied Sallust, ’but I love only to see it at the supper-table.’

‘Talking of that, Diomed gives a grand feast next week,’ said Sallust:  ‘are you invited, Glaucus?’

‘Yes, I received an invitation this morning.’

‘And I, too,’ said Sallust, drawing a square piece of papyrus from his girdle:  ’I see that he asks us an hour earlier than usual:  an earnest of something sumptuous.’

‘Oh! he is rich as Croesus,’ said Clodius; ’and his bill of fare is as long as an epic.’

‘Well, let us to the baths,’ said Glaucus:  ’this is the time when all the world is there; and Fulvius, whom you admire so much, is going to read us his last ode.’

The young men assented readily to the proposal, and they strolled to the baths.

Although the public thermae, or baths, were instituted rather for the poorer citizens than the wealthy (for the last had baths in their own houses), yet, to the crowds of all ranks who resorted to them, it was a favorite place for conversation, and for that indolent lounging so dear to a gay and thoughtless people.  The baths at Pompeii differed, of course, in plan and construction from the vast and complicated thermae