“Vah!” sniffed Agias.  “Luck will turn at last.  Let us play for real stakes.  More wine, mine host!  I will put down ten philippi.  This will be worth winning or losing.”

“As you say,” gleefully chuckled Phaon, tossing the gold on the table.  “Yes, more wine, I say too.  One always enjoys play when his temples are all athrob.”

Agias quietly reached over, took up his opponent’s dice box, and rattled it, and appeared inspecting and fingering the tali.[105] “You have won your throws fairly,” he said, handing it back.  “Now let us invoke the decision of Fortune once more.  A libation to the Genius of Good Luck!” And instead of spilling out a few drops only, he canted the flagon too far and spattered the wine on to the floor.

  [105] Four-sided dice.

“Heracles!” growled Phaon, “what a poor hazard!  I have thrown four ’ones’!”

“And I have all ‘fours’ and ‘sixes,’” cried Agias, in delight, sweeping the money toward him.

“The gods blast my luck,” muttered the freedman, “I shall be ruined at this rate.”  And he poured down more liquor.  “I have hardly five philippi left.”

“Come,” shouted Agias, jumping up; “I make a fair offer.  Your five philippi against all my winnings.”

Phaon had a dim consciousness that he was getting very drunk, that he ought to start at once for Praeneste, and that it was absolutely needful for him to have some money for bribes and gratuities if he was not to jeopardize seriously the success of his undertaking.  But Agias stood before him exultant and provoking.  The freedman could not be induced to confess to himself that he had been badly fleeced by a fellow he expected to plunder.  In drunken desperation he pulled out his last gold and threw it on the table.

“Play for that, and all the Furies curse me if I lose,” he stormed.

Agias cast two “threes,” two “fours.”

“I must better that,” thundered the freedman, slapping the tali out on to the table.

“‘Ones’ again,” roared Agias; “all four! you have lost!”

Phaon sprang up in a storm of anger, and struck over the dice.  “Three of them are ‘sixes,’” he raged.  “I have won!  You got loaded dice from the landlord, just now, when he brought the wine!”

“Not at all, you cheating scoundrel,” retorted Agias, who had already scooped in the money, “I have you fairly enough.”

“Fair?” shouted Phaon, dashing down the dice again, “they are loaded!  Lack-shame!  Villain!  Whipping-post!  Tomb-robber!  Gallows-bird!  You changed them when you pretended to inspect them!  Give me my money, thief, or—­” and he took a menacing but unsteady step toward Agias.

The young Greek was ready for the emergency.  He knew that Phaon was almost overcome with his wine, and had no dread of the issue.  A stroke of his fist sent the freedman reeling back against the wall, all the wind pounded from his chest.  “You born blackguard,” coughed Phaon, “I won it.”  Agias was renewing the attack, when the landlord interfered.  Seizing both of the gamesters by their cloaks, he pushed them out a side door into the court-yard.  “Out with you!” cried the host.  “Quarrel without, if you must!  This is no place for brawls.”