dvice, and has many good qualities, but she has a scolding
tongue, a very magpie on a sofa, those she likes, she likes, but those
she dislikes, she dislikes! Trimalchio himself has estates as broad as
the flight of a kite is long, and piles of money. There's more silver
plate lying in his steward's office than other men have in their whole
fortunes! And as for slaves, damn me if I believe a tenth of them knows
the master by sight. The truth is, that these stand-a-gapes are so much
in awe of him that any one of them would step into a fresh dunghill
without ever knowing it, at a mere nod from him!"

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

"And don't you get the idea that he buys anything; everything is produced
at home, wool, pitch, pepper, if you asked for hen's milk you would get
it. Because he wanted his wool to rival other things in quality, he
bought rams at Tarentum and sent 'em into his flocks with a slap on the
arse. He had bees brought from Attica, so he could produce Attic honey
at home, and, as a side issue, so he could improve the native bees by
crossing with the Greek. He even wrote to India for mushroom seed one
day, and he hasn't a single mule that wasn't sired by a wild ass. Do you
see all those cushions? Not a single one but what is stuffed with either
purple or scarlet wool! He hasn't anything to worry about! Look out how
you criticise those other fellow-freedmen-friends of his, they're all
well heeled. See the fellow reclining at the bottom of the end couch?
He's worth his 800,000 any day, and he rose from nothing. Only a short
while ago he had to carry faggots on his own back. I don't know how true
it is, but they say that he snatched off an Incubo's hat and found a
treasure! For my part, I don't envy any man anything that was given him
by a god. He still carries the marks of his box on the ear, and he isn't
wishing himself any bad luck! He posted this notice, only the other day:

CAIUS POMPONIUS DIOGENES HAS
PURCHASED A HOUSE
THIS GARNET FOR RENT AFTER
THE KALENDS OF JULY.

"What do you think of the fellow in the freedman's place? He has a good
front, too, hasn't he? And he has a right to. He saw his fortune
multiplied tenfold, but he lost heavily through speculation at the last.
I don't think he can call his very hair his own, and it is no fault of
his either, by Hercules, it isn't. There