Page:The Last Days of Pompeii - Bulwer-Lytton - Volume 1.djvu/25



"Ho, Diomed, well met—do you sup with Glaucus to-night?" said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb.

"Alas, no! dear Clodius; he has not invited me," (replied Diomed, a man of a portly frame and of middle age:) "by Pollux, a scurvy trick! for they say his suppers are the best in Pompeii."

"Pretty well—though there is never enough of wine for me. It is not the old Greek blood that flows in his veins, for he pretends that wine makes him dull the next morning."