Being in the mean time got ready, we walk'd we knew not where, or
rather, having a mind to divert us, struck into a tennis-court, where
we saw an old bald-pated fellow in a carnation-colour'd coat, playing
at ball with a company of boys, nor was it so much the boys, tho' it
was worth our while, that engaged us to be lookers on as the master of
the house himself in pumps, who altogether tossed the ball, and never
struck it after it once came to the ground, but had a servant by him,
with a bag full of them, ard enough for all that play'd.
We observed also some new things; for in the gallery stood two
eunuchs, one of whom held a silver chamber-pot, the other counted the
balls, not those they kept tossing, but such as fell to the ground.
While we admir'd the humour, one Menelaus came up to us, and told us
we were come where we must set up for the night, and we had seen the
beginning of our entertainment. As he was yet talking, Trimalchio
snapp'd his fingers, at which sign the eunuch held the chamber-pot to
him as he was playing; then calling for water, he dipped the tips of
his fingers in it, and dry'd them on the boys head. 'Twould be too
long to recount every thing: We went into the hot-house, and having
sweated a little, into the cold bath; and while Trimalchio was
anointed from head to foot with a liquid perfume, and rubb'd clean
again, not with linnen but with finest flannen, his three chyrurgeons
ply'd the muscadine, but brawling over their cups; Trimalchio said it
was his turn to drink; then wrapt in a scarlet mantle, he was laid on
a litter born by six servants, with four lacqueys in rich liveries
running before him, and by his side a sedan, in which was carried his
darling, a stale bleer-eyed catamite, more ill-favoured than his
master Trimalchio; who at they went on, kept close to his ear with a
flagellet as if he had whispered him, and made him musick all the way.
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