NOT THE EIGHT SORT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 135, 8 June 1881, Page 4

NOT THE EIGHT SORT.

[(London "Telegraph.")

jj {-Id tbe neighborhood of Marseilles not long ?gc, was discovered ' an ancieot' Roman bnrying-ground, containing tmotig other interesting grave*,

that of Consul Caius Septimus, wherein a quantity of antique weapons and coins were found, sue?, uioveover, an amphora — the inscription upon which was all but illegible — containing « small quantity of thick, reddish liquor, The amp^ore, emptied of its contents, was submitted to the inspection of an eminent arer-feologist, who after bestowing extraordinary pain* upoa the deciphering of the mutilated characters engraved upon its surface, <?ecl«red it to be his opinion that they indicated the presence of genuine Falernian wine within the vessel, adding that Caius Septimus, a jovial Consul of considerable ropute as a good ju<Jge of wine, had obviously ordered that a flafk of the best vintage in his cellar should be buried with him. The scientific gentleman who had discovered the Consul's #ruve and taken possession of its contents, upon learning the true character of the liquid relic in question, at once started for Paris with his FaJernian ia o glass decanter, and, (here arrived, invited a dozen of his friends, members of the Academy of Inscriptions, io a dinner at one of tbe leading restaurants. At dessert he produced tbe " Consul's wine," carefully poured it into tiny liqueur glasses, and handed it rounJ to his guests, exhorticg them to driok it, reverently and upstanding, to the immortal memory of Caius Septimus. The glasses had scarcely been emptied when a telegram was brought in hy the head waiter on a salver, and lnid before the founder of the feast. Ho opened and glanced at it, ond (hen letting it fall upon tbe floor, fled from the room with a ory of terrible agony. One of the startled Academician picked up the message and read it aloud. It read a 9 follows : «' Marseilles, 7 p.m. Don't drink contents of amphora. Not Falernian at all. Have deciphered inscription on foot, which previously escaped my notice. Red liquid ia body of Consul Cain?, liquified hy special embalming process." Bin the friendly warning oame (oo late. Tbo archanlogist and his Academical collf agues had drunk up the Consul to the last drop.