Your patron will have a barbel furnished by Corsica, or the rocks of Tauromenium, when all our own waters have been ransacked and failed; while gluttony is raging, and the market is plying its unwearied nets in the neighboring seas, and we do not allow the Tyrrhene fish to reach their full growth. The provinces, therefore, have to supply our kitchen; and thence we are furnished with what Lenas the legacy-hunter may buy, and Aurelia sell again.[223] Virro is presented with a lamprey of the largest size from the Sicilian whirlpool. For while Auster keeps himself close, while he seats himself and dries his wet pinions in prison, the nets,[224] grown venturesome, despise the dangers even of the middle of Charybdis. An eel awaits you--first-cousin to the long snake--or a coarse pike[225] from the Tiber, spotted from the winter's ice, a native of the bank-side, fattened on the filth of the rushing sewer, and used to penetrate the drain even of the middle of Suburra. "I should like to have a word with Virro, if he would lend an attentive ear. No one now expects from you such presents as used to be sent by Seneca to his friends of humble station, or the munificent gifts which the bountiful Piso or Cotta used to dispense; for in days of old the glory of giving was esteemed a higher honor than fasces or inscriptions. All we ask is that you would treat us at supper like fellow-citizens. Do this, and then, if you please, be, as many now-a-days are, luxurious when alone, parsimonious to your guests."