les, which adorned one of
the pillars of the court. There a workman could be very distinctly seen
dressing, with a sort of brush or card, a piece of white stuff edged
with red, while another is coming toward him, bearing on his head one
of those large osier cages or frames on which the girls of that region
still spread their clothes to dry. These cages resemble the bell-shaped
steel contrivances which our ladies pass under their skirts. Thus, in
the Neapolitan dialect, both articles are called drying-horses
(_asciutta-panni_). Upon the drying-horse of the Pompeian picture
perches the bird of Minerva, the protectress of the fullers and the
goddess of labor. To the left of the workmen, a young girl is handing
some stuffs to a youthful, richly-dressed lady, probably a customer,
seated near by. Another painting represents workmen dressing and fulling
all sorts of tissues, with their hands and feet in tubs or vats exactly
like the small basins which we saw in the court. A third painting shows
the mistress of the house giving orders to her slaves; and the fourth
represents a fulling press which might be deemed modern, so greatly does
it resemble those still employed in our day. The importance of this
edifice, now so stripped and dilapidated, confirms what writers have
told us of the Pompeian fullers and their once-celebrated branch of
trade.

However, most of the shops the use of which has not been precisely
designated, were places where provisions of different kinds were kept
and sold. The oil merchant in the street leading to the Odeon was
especially noticeable among them all for the beauty of his counter,
which was covered with a slab of _cipollino_ and gray marble, encrusted,
on the outside, with a round slab of porphyry between two rosettes.
Eight earthenware vases still containing olives[C] and coagulated oil
were found in the establishment of this stylish grocer.

The bathing concerns were also very numerous. They were the
coffee-houses of the ancient day. Hot drinks were sold there, boiled and
perfumed wine, and all sorts of mixtures, which must have been
detestable, but for which the ancients seem to have had a special fancy.
"A thousand and a thousand times more respectable than the wine-shops of
our day, these bathing-houses of ages gone by, where men did not
assemble to shamefully squander their means and their existence while
gorging themselves with wine, but where they came together to amuse
themselves in a de