Perhaps he will not object." Now was the crisis.

Agias had seen Phaon many times with Lucius Ahenobarbus; but he was reasonably certain that the freedman had never degraded himself by taking any notice of the numerous slaves of Lentulus's household.

Without waiting for the host to continue, he hastened over to the farther table, and exclaimed with all the effrontery at his command:-- "_Hem!_ Phaon; don't you remember an old friend ?" The freedman for once was completely off his guard.

He started up, stared at Agias, and began to mutter excuses for a very short memory.
"Well, well," cried Agias.

"You _have_ a poor recollection of faces! Don't you remember how Pratinas took you to the Big Eagle restaurant, down on the Vicus Jugarius, on the last Calends, and how you met me there, and what good Lesbian and Chian wine there was?
None of your weak, sickening Italian stuff! Surely you remember Cleombrotus, from whom you won four hundred sesterces." Phaon, who remembered the tavern, a visit, and winning four hundred sesterces at one time or another, tried to make himself believe that he won them from a young man, like the one before him, and that his name was Cleombrotus.
"Um! Yes, of course," he faltered.