While he was thus talking, a cup dropt out of a boy's hand; on which, Trimalchio looking over his shoulder at him, bad him begone, and kill himself immediately; "for," said he, "thou art careless and mind'st not what thou art about." The boy hung his lip, and besought him; but he said, "What! dost thou beseech me, as if I required some difficult matter of thee? I only bid thee obtain this of thy self, that thou be not careless again." But at last he discharged him upon our entreaty. On this the boy run round the table and cry'd, "Water without doors, and wine within." We all took the jest, but more especially Agamemnon, who knew on what account himself had been brought thither.
Trimalchio in the mean time hearing himself commended, drank all the merrier, and being within an ace of quite out, "Will none of you," said he, "invite my Fortunata to dance? Believe me, there's no one leads a country dance better:" And with that, tossing his hands round his head, fell to act a jack-pudding; the family all the while singing, 'youth it self, most exactly youth it self ;' and he had gotten into the middle of the room, but that Fortunata whispered him, and I believe told him, such gambols did not become his gravity. Nor was there any thing more uneven to it self; for one while he turned to his Fortunata, and another while to his natural inclination: But what disturbed the pleasure of her dancing, was his notaries coming in; who, as they had been the acts of a common council, read aloud:
'VII. of the Calends of August born in Trimalchio's manner of cumanum, thirty boys and forty girls, brought from the threshing-floor into the granary, five hundred thousand bushels of wheat. The same day broke out a fire in a pleasure-garden that was Pompey's, first began in one of his bayliffs houses.'
"How's this," said Trimalchio: "When were those gardens bought for me?" "The year before," answered his notary, "and therefore not yet brought to account."
At this Trimalchio fell into a fume; and "whatever lands," said he, "shall be bought me hereafter, if I hear nothing of it in six months, let them never, I charge ye, be brought to any account of mine." Then also were read the orders of the clerks of the markets, and the testaments of his woodwards, rangers, and park-keepers, by which they disinherited their relations, and with ample praise of him, declare Trimalchio their heir. Next that, the names of his bayliffs; and how one of them that made his circuits in the country, turned off his wife for having taken her in bed with a barber; the door-keeper of his baths turn'd out of his place; the auditor found short in his accounts, and the dispute between the grooms of his chamber ended.
At last came in the dancers on the rope, and a gorbelly'd blockhead standing out with a ladder, commanded his boy to hopp every round singing, and dance a jigg on the top of it, and then tumble through burning hoops of iron, with a glass in his mouth. Trimalchio was the only person that admir'd it, but withal said, he did not like it; but there were two things he could willingly behold, and they were the flyers on the high rope, and quails; and that all other creatures and shows were meer gewgaws: "For," said he, "I bought once a sett of stroulers, and chose rather to make them merry-andrews than comedians; and commanded my bag-piper to sing in Latin to them."
While he was chattering all at this rate, a boy chanced to stumble upon him, on which the family gave a shriek, the same also did the guests; not for such a beast of a man, whose neck they could willingly have seen broken, but for fear the supper should break up ill, and they be forc'd to wail the death of the boy.
Whatever it were, Trimalchio gave a deep groan; and leaning upon his arm as if it had been hurt, the physicians ran thick about him, and with the first, Fortunata, her hair about her ears, a bottle of wine in her hand, still howling, miserable unfortunate woman that she was! Undone, undone. The boy on the other hand, ran under our feet, and beseeched us to procure him a discharge: But I was much concern'd, lest our interposition might make an ill end of the matter; for the cook that had forgotten to bowel the hog was still in my thoughts. I began therefore to look about the room, for fear somewhat or other might drop through the ceiling; while the servant that had bound up his arm in white, not scarlet-colour flannen, was soundly beaten: Now was I much out, for instead of another course, came in an order of Trimalchio's by which he gave the boy his freedom; that it might not be said, so honourable a person had been hurt by his slave. We all commended the action, but chatted among our selves with what little consideration the things of this world were done. "You're in the right," said Trimalchio; "nor ought this accident to pass without booking;" and so calling for the journal, commanded it to be entered; and with, as little thought, tumbled out these verses:
"What's least expected falls into our dish,
And fortune's more indulgent than our wish:
Therefore, boy, fill the generous wine about."
This epigram gave occasion to talk of the poets, and Marsus, the Trachian, carry'd the bays a long while: till Trimalchio (turning to some wit amongst them) "I beseech ye, master of mine," said he, "tell me what difference take ye between Cicero the orator, and Publius the poet? for my part I think one was more eloquent, the other the honester man; for what could be said better than this."