Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/274



"You've been on the Rhine, it seems to me," Balbinus ventured.

"Rhine!" Proculus exclaimed. "Not a bit of it. I've been in Dacia."

"But there have been no wars in Dacia," Balbinus demurred.

"No wars!" Proculus ejaculated. "Perhaps not. Do you remember how Opsitius Tanno used to get drunk?"

"Used to," said Balbinus. "He does yet only not near so often. He'll take a notion, you can't tell when, and from beginning with the rest of us like everybody else he'll make each bowl more wine to less water until he's pouring it down pure and unmixed and the strongest in his cellar. He'll keep on till his blood is just raw wine. And then when his fit's over no more till next time."

"Just so," said Proculus. "And you remember what he said to Faltonius Bambilio?"

"Can't say I do," Balbinus ruminated. "What was it?"

"Why after Tanno was well over one of his drinking-spells some of the boys were joking him and Bambilio had to join in, 'You ought to be like me, Tanno,' says he, 'I'm never drunk.' 'No,' says Tanno, 'never drunk and never sober either.'"

"What's that got to do with Dacia?" Balbinus demanded.