'A truce to such mummery!' cried Sergius, suddenly arousing from his spiritual stupor and bursting into a shrill laugh. 'Do we care to listen to your miserable dactyls? Is it not a standing jest through Rome that, for the past month, you have daily read your verses to one person after another, with the same wretched pretence of exclusive favoritism? And do we not know that no warrant has ever been given to you to recite a single line before the emperor, either in or out of the arena? We are here to revel, not to listen to your stale aphorisms upon death and immortality. Ho, there, more wine! Take off these viands, which already pall upon us! Bring wine-more wine!' The guests were not slow to respond to the altered mood of their host; for it was merely the reflection of his sullen gravity that had eclipsed their own vivacity. The instant, therefore, that he led the way, the hall began to resound with jest and laughter. The poet, with some humiliation, which he endeavored to conceal beneath an affectation of wounded dignity, commenced rolling up his manuscript, not before a splash of wine from a carelessly filled flagon had soiled the fair-written characters. More flasks were placed upon the table by ready and obedient hands--and from that moment the real entertainment of the evening commenced. Faster than any of his guests, as though care could be the better drowned by frequent libations, Sergius now filled and refilled his flagon; and though the repeated draughts may not have brought forgetfulness, yet, what was the nearest thing, they produced reckless indifference. No longer should the cloud which he had thus suddenly swept away from his brow be suffered to remain. Was he not master in his own house? If woman deceives, was that a reason why man should mourn and grow gray with melancholy? What though a random thought might at times intrude, of one who, in the next room, with her head against the wall, lay in a half stupor, listening to the ring of goblets and the loud laugh and jest? Had she not brought it all upon herself? He would fill up again, and think no more about it! And still, obedient to his directing tone, the guests followed him with more and more unbridled license, until the hall rang with merriment as it had never rung before.