CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SEVENTH.
"But why isn't Fortunata at the table, Gaius?
Tell me." "What's that," Trimalchio replied; "don't you know her better than that?
She wouldn't touch even a drop of water till after the silver was put away and the leftovers divided among the slaves." "I'm going to beat it if she don't take her place," Habinnas threatened, and started to get up; and then, at a signal, the slaves all called out together "Fortunata," four times or more.
She appeared, girded round with a sash of greenish yellow, below which a cherry-colored tunic could be seen, and she had on twisted anklets and sandals worked in gold.

Then, wiping her hands upon a handkerchief which she wore around her neck, she seated herself upon the couch, beside Scintilla, Habinnas' wife, and clapping her hands and kissing her, "My dear," she gushed, "is it really you ?" Fortunata then removed the bracelets from her pudgy arms and held them out to the admiring Scintilla, and by and by she took off her anklets and even her yellow hair-net, which was twenty-four carats fine, she would have us know! Trimalchio, who was on the watch, ordered every trinket to be brought to him.

"You see these things, don't you ?" he demanded; "they're what women fetter us with.

That's the way us poor suckers are done! These ought to weigh six pounds and a half.

I have an arm-band myself, that don't weigh a grain under ten pounds; I bought it out of Mercury's thousandths, too." Finally, for fear he would seem to be lying, he ordered the scales to be brought in and carried around to prove the weights.