The man thus caressingly saluted, and whose bared arms, white apron, and keys and napkin tucked carelessly within his girdle, indicated him to be the host of the tavern, was already passed into the autumn of his years; but his form was still so robust and athletic, that he might have shamed even the sinewy shapes beside him, save that the muscles had seeded, as it were, into flesh, that the cheeks were swelled and bloated, and the increasing stomach threw into shade the vast and massive chest which rose above it.

‘None of thy scurrilous blusterings with me,’ growled the gigantic landlord, in the gentle semi-roar of an insulted tiger; ’my wine is good enough for a carcass which shall so soon soak the dust of the spoliarium.’

‘Croakest thou thus, old raven!’ returned the gladiator, laughing scornfully; ’thou shalt live to hang thyself with despite when thou seest me win the palm crown; and when I get the purse at the amphitheatre, as I certainly shall, my first vow to Hercules shall be to forswear thee and thy vile potations evermore.’

’Hear to him—­hear to this modest Pyrgopolinices!  He has certainly served under Bombochides Cluninstaridysarchides,’ cried the host.  ’Sporus, Niger, Tetraides, he declares he shall win the purse from you.  Why, by the gods! each of your muscles is strong enough to stifle all his body, or I know nothing of the arena!’

‘Ha!’ said the gladiator, coloring with rising fury, ’our lanista would tell a different story.’

‘What story could he tell against me, vain Lydon?’ said Tetraides, frowning.

‘Or me, who have conquered in fifteen fights?’ said the gigantic Niger, stalking up to the gladiator.

‘Or me?’ grunted Sporus, with eyes of fire.

‘Tush!’ said Lydon, folding his arms, and regarding his rivals with a reckless air of defiance.  ’The time of trial will soon come; keep your valor till then.’

‘Ay, do,’ said the surly host; ’and if I press down my thumb to save you, may the Fates cut my thread!’

‘Your rope, you mean,’ said Lydon, sneeringly:  ’here is a sesterce to buy one.’

The Titan wine-vender seized the hand extended to him, and griped it in so stern a vice that the blood spirted from the fingers’ ends over the garments of the bystanders.

They set up a savage laugh.

’I will teach thee, young braggart, to play the Macedonian with me!  I am no puny Persian, I warrant thee!  What, man! have I not fought twenty years in the ring, and never lowered my arms once?  And have I not received the rod from the editor’s own hand as a sign of victory, and as a grace to retirement on my laurels?  And am I now to be lectured by a boy?’ So saying, he flung the hand from him in scorn.

Without changing a muscle, but with the same smiling face with which he had previously taunted mine host, did the gladiator brave the painful grasp he had undergone.  But no sooner was his hand released, than, crouching for one moment as a wild cat crouches, you might see his hair bristle on his head and beard, and with a fierce and shrill yell he sprang on the throat of the giant, with an impetus that threw him, vast and sturdy as he was, from his balance—­and down, with the crash of a falling rock, he fell—­while over him fell also his ferocious foe.