_Apic._ Hallo! Pistillarius and Abligurinus, make a fire with big logs on the hearth under the flue, and let them be as dry as possible.
_Pist._ Do you think you are at Rome? Here we have not stalls for the sale of dry wood from which dry logs can be got. But this which I have will be dry enough.
_Apic._ If you don’t get it dry enough, Abligurinus, you will, by your work of blowing up the flame, lose your eyesight.
_Ablig._ Then I shall drink so much the more freely. Curse the wine!
_Apic._ Curse the water! For you shall not touch wine to-day if I keep in my right mind. I am not going to let you overturn the vessels, and break the small pots to pieces, and ruin the food.
_Apic._ Throw in a small bundle of sticks smeared in brimstone, and kindling-wood, together with some chips.
_Apic._ Run across to the next house with the shovel and bring us a great big firebrand and some good live coal.
_Ablig._ The master of that house is a metal-worker, nor does he let a single piece of coal be taken from his furnaces but he has his eye on it (_citius oculum_).
_Apic._ He is not a metal-worker, but a metal-cutter; go therefore to the oven. What are you bringing there? This is not a firebrand; it is rather a torch (_titionem magis quam torrem_).
_Apic._ What bad coal! You should rather call it turf. Move these logs and stir the kindling wood with this poker so that it may gather flame. Use the _pyrolabum_ (the tongs), you ass!
_Ablig._ What thing does that word signify?
_Apic._ _Forceps ignaria_ (tongs for the fire), a _pruniceps_ (a fire-stirrer).
_Ablig._ Why do you give me words in Greek, as if there were not Latin words for the things?
_Ablig._ What wonder, since grammarians are certainly _asses_.
_Apic._ Make an end of wrangling. I want some coals or pieces of turf lighting for me on this hearth, for cooking the cakes baked in earthen cups. Hang the bronze vessel over the fire so that we can have plenty of hot water. Then throw into the cooking-pot that shoulder of mutton with the salted beef; add calf and lamb flesh, and stir the cooking vessel on the fire. In the _chytropus_[61] we will thoroughly boil the rice.
_Ablig._ What shall we do with the chickens?
_Apic._ They shall be cooked in brazen pots which are lined with tin, so that they may have a more pleasant taste. But don’t bring them too soon; the meat-spits and the pans should be forthcoming about nine o’clock. Let this pike play about in the water a little, then skin him.