28
No doubt that is true, cock. But as to myself, I am not ashamed to tell you how I feel. I am not yet able to unlearn the desire of becoming rich that [have had since my boyhood. My dream, too, still stands before my eyes displaying its gold; and above all I am choking with envy of that confounded Simon, who is revelling in so many blessings.
28
I will cure you, Micyllus. As it is still night, get up and follow me; I will take you to visit Simon and to the house of the other rich men, so that you may see what their establishments are like.
28
How can you do it when their doors are locked? You aren't going to make me be a burglar?
28
Not by any means. But Hermes, to whom IT am consecrated, gave me this privilege, that if my longest tail feather, the one that is so pliant that it curls—
28
You have two like that.
28
It is the one on the right, and if I permit any man to pull it out and keep it, that man, as long as I choose, can open every door and see everything without being seen himself.
28
I didn’t realize, cock, that you yourself were a conjurer. Well, if you only let me have it, you shall see all Simon’s possessions brought over here in a jiffy: Pl slip in and bring them over, and he will once more eat his leather as he stretches it.The ancient shoemaker held one side of the leather in his teeth in stretching it. Cf. Dentibus antiquas solitus producere pelles et mordere luto putre vetusque solum—. Martial 9, 73.
28
That is impossible, for Hermes ordered me, if the man who had the feather did anything of that sort, to uplift my voice and expose him.
28
It is hard to believe what you say, that Hermes, himself a thief, begrudges others the same privilege. But let’s be off just the same; I'll keep my hands off the gold if I can.
28
First pluck the feather out, Micyllus . . . What's this? You have pulled them both out!
28
It is safer to do so, cock, and it will spoil your beauty less, preventing you from being crippled on one side of your tail.
