CHAPTER III.
TENANTRY AND SLAVERY Agathemer came in and explained that my tenants had a petition to present to me and had gathered, hoping that I would receive them after dinner.
(Doubtless, I thought, conjecturing that I would be, just after dinner, in the most accommodating humor possible.) "I must see this and hear what they have to say," Tanno declared.

"Have you any objections to our going with you, Caius ?" he asked.
On my saying that I should be glad to have him come along, he said: "Come on, all of you, it will be fun, and standing out in the night cool will freshen our zest for our wine." All nine of us went out on the terrace.

The prospect was indeed beautiful, only the brighter stars showing in the pale sky, the far hills outlined against it, the nearer hills darkly glimmering in the moon-rays, the valleys all full of pearly moonlit haze, the pleasance about the villa vague in the witchery of the moon's full radiance.
In that full radiance, on the path below the balustrade of the terrace, were my nine tenant farmers.

Not one, as was natural among our healthy hills, but was my elder.

Yet, according to our customary mode of address from master to tenant, I said to them: "What brings you here, lads, so long after your habitual bed-time ?" Ligo Atrior acted as spokesman.
"We have a request to prefer," he said, "and we judged this an opportune time." "Speak out," I said, "our wine is waiting for me and my guests, and I am listening.