Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/184

 caused me to laugh heartily. And as a matter of fact, I affirm that such a meaning is easily possible.”

Professor E. P. Crowell, the first American scholar to edit Petronius, gravely states in his preface that “the object of this edition is to provide for class-room use an expurgated text,” and I note that he has tactfully omitted the “wineskins” from his edition.

In this connection the last sentence in the remarks of Wouweren, alluded to above, is strangely to the point. After stating his emendation of “veretriculis or veretellis” for “utriculis,” he says: “Unless someone proves that images of Marsyas were fashioned in the likeness of bag-pipers,” a fine instance of clarity of vision for so dark an age.

  “Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it fiercely into the boar’s side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash.”

In the winter of 1895 a dinner was given in a New York studio. This dinner, locally known as the “Girl in the Pie Dinner,” was based upon Petronius, Martial, and the thirteenth book of Atheneus. In the summer of 1919, I had the questionable pleasure of interviewing the chef-caterer who got it up, and he was, at the time, engaged in trying to work out another masterpiece to be given in California. The studio, one Rh