For that impatient and lively people had, as now, a language distinct from speech--a language of signs and motions, inexpressibly significant and vivacious: their descendants retain it, and the learned Jorio hath written a most entertaining work upon that species of hieroglyphical gesticulation.
Sauntering through the crowd, Glaucus soon found himself amidst a group of his merry and dissipated friends.
'Ah!' said Sallust, 'it is a lustrum since I saw you.' 'And how have you spent the lustrum?
What new dishes have you discovered ?' 'I have been scientific,' returned Sallust, 'and have made some experiments in the feeding of lampreys: I confess I despair of bringing them to the perfection which our Roman ancestors attained.' 'Miserable man! and why ?' 'Because,' returned Sallust, with a sigh, 'it is no longer lawful to give them a slave to eat.

I am very often tempted to make away with a very fat carptor (butler) whom I possess, and pop him slily into the reservoir.

He would give the fish a most oleaginous flavor! But slaves are not slaves nowadays, and have no sympathy with their masters' interest--or Davus would destroy himself to oblige me!' 'What news from Rome ?' said Lepidus, as he languidly joined the group.
'The emperor has been giving a splendid supper to the senators,' answered Sallust.
'He is a good creature,' quoth Lepidus; 'they say he never sends a man away without granting his request.' 'Perhaps he would let me kill a slave for my reservoir ?' returned Sallust, eagerly.
'Not unlikely,' said Glaucus; 'for he who grants a favor to one Roman, must always do it at the expense of another.

Be sure, that for every smile Titus has caused, a hundred eyes have wept.' 'Long live Titus!' cried Pansa, overhearing the emperor's name, as he swept patronizingly through the crowd; 'he has promised my brother a quaestorship, because he had run through his fortune.' 'And wishes now to enrich himself among the people, my Pansa,' said Glaucus.
'Exactly so,' said Pansa.
'That is putting the people to some use,' said Glaucus.
'To be sure, returned Pansa.

'Well, I must go and look after the aerarium--it is a little out of repair'; and followed by a long train of clients, distinguished from the rest of the throng by the togas they wore (for togas, once the sign of freedom in a citizen, were now the badge of servility to a patron), the aedile fidgeted fussily away.
'Poor Pansa!' said Lepidus: 'he never has time for pleasure.