In going to the table,
he made room for himself and his followers with little ceremony
and no apologies; and when at length he stopped, and looked over
it and at the players, they all turned to him, with a shout like
a cheer.
"Messala! Messala!" they cried.
Those in distant quarters, hearing the cry, re-echoed it where they
were. Instantly there were dissolution of groups, and breaking-up
of games, and a general rush towards the centre.
Messala took the demonstration indifferently, and proceeded
presently to show the ground of his popularity.
"A health to thee, Drusus, my friend," he said to the player next
at his right; "a health--and thy tablets a moment."
He raised the waxen boards, glanced at the memoranda of wagers,
and tossed them down.
"Denarii, only denarii--coin of cartmen and butchers!" he said,
with a scornful laugh. "By the drunken Semele, to what is Rome
coming, when a Caesar sits o' nights waiting a turn of fortune
to bring him but a beggarly denarius!"
The scion of the Drusi reddened to his brows, but the bystanders
broke in upon his reply by surging closer around the table,
and shouting, "The Messala! the Messala!"
"Men of the Tiber," Messala continued, wresting a box with the dice
in it from a hand near-by, "who is he most favored of the gods?
A Roman. Who is he lawgiver of the nations? A Roman. Who is he,
by sword right, the universal master?"
The company were of the easily inspired, and the thought was one
to which they were born; in a twinkling they snatched the answer
from him.
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