Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/258

 will tell you a different story, but as for myself, I’m fairly busting with prosperity. What, grunting-sow, still bawling? I’ll see to it that you’ve something to bawl for, but as I started to say, it was my thrift that brought me to my fortune. I was just as tall as that candlestick when I came over from Asia; every day I used to measure myself by it, and I would smear my lips with oil so my beard would sprout all the sooner. I was my master’s ‘mistress’ for fourteen years, for there’s nothing wrong in doing what your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time, you know what I mean, but I’ll say no more, for I’m not one of your braggarts!

  “At last it came about by the will of the gods that I was master in the house, and I had the real master under my thumb then. What is there left to tell? I was made co-heir with Cæsar and came into a Senator’s fortune. But no- Rh