Scin. Nothing could be better. Thence by the keysmith’s into the Sweetmeats Quarter (vicum dulciarium), then into the fruit market.
Borg. Nay, rather the vegetable market.
Scin. The market is both. Those who prefer to eat vegetables call it the vegetable market; those who prefer fruit call it the fruit market. What a spaciousness there is of the market, what a multitude of sellers and of things exposed for sale! What a smell of fruit, what variety, cleanliness, and brightness! Gardens could hardly be thought to contain fruit equal to the supply of what is in this market. What skill and diligence our inspector (aedilis) of public property and his ministers show so that no buyer shall be taken in by fraud. Is not he who is riding about so much, Honoratus Joannius?
Caban. I think not, for one of my boys, who met him just now, left him retiring to his library. If he knew that we were here together then he would undoubtedly join us in our conversation and would postpone his serious studies to our play.
Borg. Now at last describe the laws of play!
Scin. We will withdraw from this crowd by the Street of the Holy Virgin the Redeemer, to the Smoky street and to St. Augustine’s, where there are fewer people.
Caban. Let us not go down so far away from the main body of the city. Let us rather ascend through the street of Money-Purses to the Hill, then to the Soldiers’ Quarter and the house of your family, Scintilla, whose walls yet seem to me to mourn over that hero, Count Olivanus!
Borg. Nay, they have now laid aside their grief, and now rejoice in all seriousness that such a youth has stepped into the place of so great an old man.
Scin. Oh, how delightful it is to look into the Senate House (curia) and the fourfold court of the governor of the city (praefectus urbis), which by now seems almost to have become the heritage of your family, Cabanillius—one part of the building for a civil, another for a criminal, court, and this part for the three hundred solidi. What buildings! what a glory of the city!