Other courses follow, and betwixt or during each there is some entertainment or some surprise. Now a slave boy is freed, then an orator enters and recounts the munificent deeds of the host. Then again the cook is dragged in and threatened with condign punishment for having forgotten to remove the intestines from a hog. At first he is handed over to the tormentors; but the guests intercede, when the cook is directed to slash open the intestines with a knife, and out falls a mass of sausages. Thereupon follows immense applause; the cook is crowned with honours and dismissed. Poor poets and literary men who are present are vulgarly patronised by the host, and are “drawn out” into conversation, whilst compliment after compliment is showered on the host. Towards the close of the banquet, the ceiling over the heads of the guests cracks and opens, and a great ring descends, hung all round with golden crowns and alabaster pots filled with perfume, as presents to the guests; and this is but one amongst similar surprises. But how is it about our special department all this time? Are the guests all as sober as when they assembled? Hardly, for each new course has brought with it a fresh supply of wine, which is carried round from right to left as with us; and although at first it is taken mixed with water, it is soon drunk alone, until all the guests have arrived at that third stage which “tranquillity and sleep inspires.” But soon one of them, who never once allowed the wine to pass, and “is not in a fit state for discussion,” naïvely acquaints his host with the interesting fact that he is “completely fuddled;” an announcement which is received with laughter and applause. His example is soon followed by others, until all arrive at the fourth or fifth stages, from which “insolence” and “uproar” proceed. The guests begin to vie with one another in drinking, brag, and bluster. But there is method in this dipsomania; for the slaves, too, are ordered to drink freely, that they may not see their masters at a disadvantage; and when, at one particular phase of the entertainment, the wine is brought round, the host threatens to have it poured over the head of any of his guests who fails to drain his bumper.[174] During the entertainment other friends arrive, and one party comes tipsy from a funeral, until at length host and guests, men and women, are all drunk together. Some of them retire, if reeling out of the hall can be so called, and proceed to take a bath, with a view of returning to the charge and renewing the bout; and finally the spectacle becomes indescribable, and the curtain falls on the last scene of all amidst “riot and confusion.”