When I returned to the _triclinium_ I found it swept clean of silver,
except the two big wine mixers. The four two-handled pails were gone and
with them the salt-cellars, the wine strainers, every soup-spoon, every
oyster-spoon, in fact every small piece, to the last. The thieves must
have been deft, agile and keen, for nothing was overset or disturbed and I
had heard no noise.
I rushed to the house-door, found it ajar and, each sleeping in his cell,
on the one side the snoring janitor, on the other our fat, pursy, overfed
watchdog.
I omit my hasty measures for pursuing the thieves and attempting their
capture or at least the recovery of their booty; and my urgent and
important efforts to arrange that our guests should be properly received
and the dinner should not be spoiled. Towards this last I did what could
be done and with fair success, Falco playing up to my suggestions and
dissimulating his chagrin.
More important to record was his amazing indifference to his loss. Not
that he did not feel it acutely, but that he seemed to feel no proper
indignation against those at fault.
He questioned the janitor and all the slaves concerned, but instead of
ordering scourged the two servitors whom I had left in the _triclinium_
when I went out of it to visit the kitchen and who should have remained
there until my return, he merely reprimanded them mildly.
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