n't you?" he demanded; "they're what
women fetter us with. That's the way us poor suckers are done! These
ought to weigh six pounds and a half. I have an arm-band myself, that
don't weigh a grain under ten pounds; I bought it out of Mercury's
thousandths, too." Finally, for fear he would seem to be lying, he
ordered the scales to be brought in and carried around to prove the
weights. And Scintilla was no better. She took off a small golden
vanity case which she wore around her neck, and which she called her
Lucky Box, and took from it two eardrops, which, in her turn, she handed
to Fortunata to be inspected. "Thanks to the generosity of my husband,"
she smirked, "no woman has better." "What's that?" Habinnas demanded.
"You kept on my trail to buy that glass bean for you; if I had a
daughter, I'll be damned if I wouldn't cut off her little ears. We'd
have everything as cheap as dirt if there were no women, but we have to
piss hot and drink cold, the way things are now." The women, angry
though they were, were laughing together, in the meantime, and exchanging
drunken kisses, the one running on about her diligence as a housekeeper,
and the other about the infidelities and neglect of her husband.
Habinnas got up stealthily, while they were clinging together in this
fashion and, seizing Fortunata by the feet, he tipped her over backwards
upon the couch. "Let go!" she screeched, as her tunic slipped above her
knees; then, after pulling down her clothing, she threw herself into
Scintilla's lap, and hid, with her handkerchief, a face which was none
the more beautiful for its blushes.

CHAPTER THE SIXTY-EIGHTH.

After a short interval, Trimalchio gave orders for the dessert to be
served, whereupon the slaves took away all the tables and brought in
others, and sprinkled the floor with sawdust mixed with saffron and
vermilion, and also with powdered mica, a thing I had never seen done
before. When all this was done Trimalchio remarked, "I could rest
content with this course, for you have your second tables, but, if you've
something especially nice, why bring it on." Meanwhile an Alexandrian
slave boy, who had been serving hot water, commenced to imitate a
nightingale, and when Trimalchio presently called out, "Change your
tune," we had another surprise, for a slave, sitting at Habinnas' feet,
egged on, I have no doubt, by his own master, bawled suddenly in a
singsong voice, "Meanwhile AEneas and all of his