I thank you for your invitation." Lucius muttered some polite and conventional terms of regret, and fell back to join Servius Flaccus and Gabinius, who were near him.
"I invited him and he refused," he said half scornfully, half bitterly.

"That little minx, Cornelia, has been complaining of me to him, I am sure.

The gods ruin him! If he wishes to become my enemy, he'll have good cause to fear my bite." "You say he's from Praeneste," said Gabinius, "and yet can he speak decent Latin?
Doesn't he say '_conia_' for '_ciconia_,' and '_tammodo_' for '_tantummodo_'_ ?_ I wonder you invite such a boor." "Oh! he can speak good enough Latin," said Lucius.

"But I invited him because he is rich; and it might be worth our while to make him gamble." "Rich!" lisped Servius Flaccus.

"Rich (h)as my (h)uncle the broker?
That silly straightlac( h)ed fellow, who's (h)a C( h)ato, (h)or worse?
For shame!" "Well," said Lucius, "old Crassus used to say that no one who couldn't pay out of his own purse for an army was rich.