win to-night. Flaminius, you shall have your revenge at
Catiline's."

"You are very kind. I do not intend to be at Catiline's till I
wish to part with my town-house. My villa is gone already."

"Not at Catiline's, base spirit! You are not of his mind, my
gallant Ligarius. Dice, Chian, and the loveliest Greek singing
girl that was ever seen. Think of that, Ligarius. By Venus, she
almost made me adore her, by telling me that I talked Greek with
the most Attic accent that she had heard in Italy."

"I doubt she will not say the same of me," replied Ligarius. "I
am just as able to decipher an obelisk as to read a line of
Homer."

"You barbarous Scythian, who had the care of your education?"

"An old fool,--a Greek pedant,--a Stoic. He told me that pain
was no evil, and flogged me as if he thought so. At last one
day, in the middle of a lecture, I set fire to his enormous
filthy beard, singed his face, and sent him roaring out of the
house. There ended my studies. From that time to this I have
had as little to do with Greece as the wine that your poor old
friend Lutatius calls his delicious Samian."

"Well done, Ligarius. I hate a Stoic. I wish Marcus Cato had a
beard that you might singe it for him. The fool talked his two
hours in the Senate yesterday, without changing a muscle of his
face. He looked as savage and as motionless as the mask in which