table all of a sudden. A tray followed them, upon which was served a
wild boar of immense size, wearing a liberty cap upon its head, and from
its tusks hung two little baskets of woven palm fibre, one of which
contained Syrian dates, the other, Theban. Around it hung little
suckling pigs made from pastry, signifying that this was a brood-sow with
her pigs at suck. It turned out that these were souvenirs intended to be
taken home. When it came to carving the boar, our old friend Carver, who
had carved the capons, did not appear, but in his place a great bearded
giant, with bands around his legs, and wearing a short hunting cape in
which a design was woven. Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it
fiercely into the boar's side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash.
fowlers, ready with their rods, caught them in a moment, as they
fluttered around the room and Trimalchio ordered one to each guest,
remarking, "Notice what fine acorns this forest-bred boar fed on," and as
he spoke, some slaves removed the little baskets from the tusks and
divided the Syrian and Theban dates equally among the diners.




CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

Getting a moment to myself, in the meantime, I began to speculate as to
why the boar had come with a liberty cap upon his head. After exhausting
my invention with a thousand foolish guesses, I made bold to put the
riddle which teased me to my old informant. "Why, sure," he replied,
"even your slave could explain that; there's no riddle, everything's as
plain as day! This boar made his first bow as the last course of
yesterday's dinner and was dismissed by the guests, so today he comes
back as a freedman!" I damned my stupidity and refrained from asking any