"
We thank'd him for his freeness, and the liberty he gave us, when yet
to suppress our laughter, we set the glasses about again; nor did we
yet know that in the midst of such dainties we were, as they say, to
clamber another hill; for the cloth being again taken away, upon the
next musick were brought in three fat hogs with collars and bells
about their necks; and he that had the charge of them told us, the one
was two years old, the other three, and the third full grown. I took
it at first to have been a company of tumblers, and that the hogs, as
the manner is, were to have shewn us some tricks in a ring, till
Trimalchio breaking my expectation, "Which of them," said he, "will ye
have for supper? for cocks, pheasants, and the like trifles are but
country fare, but my cooks have coppers will boil a calf whole;" and
therewith commanding a cook to be called for, he prevented our choice
by ordering him to kill the largest, and with a loud voice, asked him,
Of what rank of servants in that house he was? to which he answering,
of the fortieth: "Were you bought," said the other, "or born in my
house?" "Neither," said the cook, "but left you by Pansa's
testament." "See then," said Trimalchio, "that you dress it as it
should be, or I'll send you to the galleys." On which the cook,
advertised of his power, went into the kitchin to mind his charge.
But Trimalchio turning to us with a pleasanter look, asked if the wine
pleased us, "If not," said he, "I'll have it changed, and if it does,
let me see it by your drinking: I thank the gods I do not buy it, but
have everything that may get an appetite growing on my own grounds
without the city, which no man that I know but my self has; and yet it
has been taken for Tarracino and Taranto.
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