Since I am then the only freeman in the
villa there are no witnesses of our dining together. But if I have him to
dinner with any guest he becomes thereby a freeman, as you very well know.
And if I were free to set him free and chose to free him in that fashion,
I should have to advise my friends in advance of my intentions and ask
whether they were willing to lend themselves to such a proceeding. One
cannot invite a man without previous explanation and then, when he's
already in one's house, ask him to lie down to dinner with a slave."
"Slave!" Tanno roared at me, his face red as the back of a boiled lobster.
If I had just missed being angry with him, there was no doubt that he was
in a tearing fury with me.
"Slave?" he repeated. "Agathemer still a slave? Are you joking or are you
serious? Is this true?"
"Entirely and literally true." I affirmed.
Tanno, so red that I should have thought it impossible that he could grow
redder, grew redder.
"If your uncle," he roared, "did not free him in his will he was a hog. If
you haven't freed him yourself, you're a hog. Free him here and now! Show
some decency and some gratitude! Better late than never. Here, Agathemer,
get off that boy's stool and lie down between me and Entedius.
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