"Dear Jove,

"Knowing you are going to have a feast at Tempe I have sent my
favourite Cerberus to pick up the crumbs as he gets but poor
living in the shades here at Tartarus. Proserpine sends her love
to Ceres.

"Yours ever,

"PLUTO."

N.B. "Send Cerberus back at night."

"Faugh! how it stinks of brimstone!" said Jupiter, "we'll give poor
Cerberus a meal though, for he looks woefully thin; I should not think
Pluto gave him much from his appearance." So down they sat, Cerberus and
Jove's eagle being installed under the table, while Minerva's owl, Juno's
peacock, and the protegés of the other immortals were left to pick up what
they could outside. They had not sat long before the noise of a vast
contention was heard, and the cause being sought, it was discovered to be
a bone which Jupiter had thrown under the table, and which was violently
contested by Cerberus and the eagle. Peace was restored by the expulsion
of the offending eagle, as Jove said he ought to know better, having come
from Olympus, while Cerberus was brought up in Tartarus. All went on
quietly for a time, when Cerberus unfortunately squatted himself down on
Jupiter's thunderbolt, which its master had dropped under the table, and
giving a most terrific yell, rushed between the legs of Mercury's chair,
and upset him in a twinkling, while, almost before he could rise, poor
Cerberus was treading the "facilis descensus Averni," with his posteriors