swer was
raisins--uva passa--and Attic honey; "cenatoria"--a dinner toga--"and
forensia"--business dress--he handed out a piece of meat--suggestive of
dinner--and a note-book--suggestive of business--; "canale"--chased by a
dog--"and pedale"--pertaining to the foot--, a hare and a slipper were
brought out; "lamphrey"--murena--"and a letter," he held up a
mouse--mus--and a frog--rana--tied together, and a bundle of
beet--beta--the Greek letter beta--. We laughed long and loud, there
were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my
memory.

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SEVENTH.

But Ascyltos threw off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing
up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. At last,
one of Trimalchio's fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to
me, flew into a rage, "What's the joke, sheep's-head," he bawled, "Don't
our host's swell entertainment suit you? You're richer than he is, I
suppose, and used to dining better! As I hope the guardian spirit of
this house will be on my side, I'd have stopped his bleating long ago if
I'd been sitting next to him. He's a peach, he is, laughing at others;
some vagabond or other from who-knows-where, some night-pad who's not
worth his own piss: just let me piss a ring around him and he wouldn't
know where to run to! I ain't easy riled, no, by Hercules, I ain't, but
worms breed in tender flesh. Look at him laugh! What the hell's he got
to laugh at? Is his family so damned fine-haired? So you're a Roman
knight! Well, I'm a king's son! How's it come that you've been a slave,
you'll ask because I put myself into service because I'd rather be a
Roman citizen than a tax-paying provincial. And now I hope that my life
will be such that no one can jeer at me. I'm a man among men! I take my
stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent. I never had a summons in
my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me.
I've bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty
bellies and a dog. I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his
hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen
priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need
to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't
look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you
can't see the tick on yourself. You're the only one that thinks w