Do ye think I broke upon ’t, (so help me Hercules) no; the loss was but a flea-bite:  For, as if there had been no such thing, I built others, larger, better, and more fortunate than the former; so that every one called me a man of courage.  As you know a great ship carries a great deal of force, I loaded them again with wine, bacon, beans, unguents, planes:  And here Fortunata shewed her affection; for she sold what she had; nay, her very cloaths, and put a round sum in my pocket; tho’ yet it was but a pig of my own sow.  What the gods will is quickly done; I got an hundred thousand sesterties by the voyage, and forthwith redeemed the lands my patron had left me, built me a house, bought cattle to sell them again, and whatever I went about gathered like a snow-ball:  But when I grew richer than all the country besides, I took up; and from a merchant turn’d usurer, and bought servants.

“Thus resolved to give over trading, a certain astrologer that chanc’d to light on this village, would have persuaded me to the contrary.  He was a Graecian, his name Soerapa, one that held correspondence with the gods.  He told me a deal that I had forgotten, and laid everything before me from top to bottom:  He knew all I had within me, and told me what I had the night before to supper; you’d have thought he had liv’d with me all his life.

“I beseech you, Habinas, for I think you was there; he told me the intrigue between my mistress and me; that I had but ill luck at friends; that no one ever made me a return of my kindnesses:  That I had large possessions, but nourished a viper in my bosom:  Why should I not tell you all?  I have by his account, thirty years, four months, and two days yet to live; and in a short time shall have another estate left me.

“Thus my fortune-teller.  But if I can join my lands here to those in Apulia, I shall do well enough:  in the mean, and while Mercury is my guardian, I have built this house:  it was once you know, a pitiful cabin, but now as magnificent as a temple:  it has four dining rooms, twenty bed-chambers two marble porticoes, a gallery above stairs, my own apartment, another for this viper; a very good porter’s lodge, and the house capable of receiving a thousand guests:  To be short, when ever Scaurus comes this way, he had rather lodge here than at his own house, tho’ it lie to the seaward:  and many other conveniences it has, which I’ll shew you by and by.  Believe me, he that has a penny in his purse, is worth a penny:  Have and you shall be esteemed.  And so your friend, once no better than a frog, is now a king.

“And now Stichus bring me the furniture in which I design to be carried to my funeral pile; bring also the unguent, and some of that pot, which I ordered for the cleansing my bones.”

Stichus lingered not, but brought in a white coverlet, and robe of state, and pray’d us to try if they were not fine wooll, and well woven.  “And see you Stichus,” said Trimalchio smiling, “that neither mice nor moths come at them, for if they do I’ll burn you alive.  I will be brought out in pomp, that all the people may speak well of me.”