the great public-room a carter was trolling a coarse ditty, while
through the doorway ran a screaming serving-maid to escape some low
familiarity.

A shock-headed boy with a lantern took Agias's bridle, and the Greek
alighted; almost under his eyes the dim light fell on a handsome,
two-horse gig, standing beside the entrance to the court. Agias gave
the vehicle close attention.

"It belongs to a gentleman from Rome, now inside," explained the boy,
"one horse went lame, and the veterinary[103] is coming." Agias's eye
caught a very peculiar bend in the hollow in the neck-yoke. He had
seen that carriage before, on the fashionable boulevards--along the
Tiber, in the Campus Martius--the carriage of Lucius Ahenobarbus.
Phaon was waiting in the tavern!

[103] _Equarius_.

"Care for my horse at once," remarked Agias, a little abruptly. "Time
presses." And he turned on his heel, and leaving the boy gaping after
him, went into the squalid public-room of the tavern.

The landlord of the establishment, a small, red-faced, bustling man,
was fussing over some lean thrushes roasting on a spit before the open
fire that was roaring on the hearth. The landlady, lazy, muscular,
corpulent, and high-voiced, was expostulating with a pedler who was
trying to slip out without settling. Four other persons, slaves and
peasants, were sitting on two low benches beside a small, circular
table, and were busy pouring down the liquor which a young serving-boy
brought them in tumbler-shaped cups, or eating greedily at loaves of