My master made me step out of my cage; I traversed the booth, in which I saw not a single slave left. I found myself face to face with a gray haired man, of a cold, hard countenance. He wore the military dress, limped very badly, and supported himself on a vine-wood cane, which was the mark of the centurion rank in the Roman army. The dealer lifted from my shoulders the woolen covering in which I was wrapped, and left me stripped to the waist; he then made me get out of my breeches also. My master, with the air of a man proud of his merchandise, thus exposed my nakedness to the customer. Several of the curious, assembled outside of the stall, looked in and contemplated me. I dropped my eyes in shame and sorrow, not in anger. After the prospective purchaser read the writing which hung from my neck, he looked me over carefully, answering with affirmative nods of the head to what the merchant, with his usual volubility, was saying to him in Latin. Often he stopped to measure, with his spread out fingers, the size of my chest, the thickness of my arms, or the width of my shoulders. His first examination must have pleased the centurion, for my master said to me: "Be proud for your master, friend Bull, your build is found faultless. 'See'--I just said to the customer--'would not the Grecian sculptors have taken this superb slave as a model for a Hercules?' My customer agreed with me. Now you must show him that your strength and agility are not inferior to your appearance." My master pointed to a lead weight in readiness for the trial, and said to me while loosening my arms: "Now put on your breeches again, then take this weight in your two hands, lift it over your head, and hold it there as long as you can." I was about, in my stupid docility, to do as I was bid, when the centurion stooped towards the weight, and attempted to lift it from the ground, which he did, with much difficulty, while my master said to me: "This mischievous cripple is as foxy as myself. He knows that many dealers use hollow weights which appear to weigh two or three times as much as they actually do. Come, friend Bull, show this suspicious fellow that you are as powerful as you are well built." My strength was not yet entirely returned. Nevertheless, I took the heavy weight in my hands, throwing it over my head, and balanced it there a moment. A vague idea flitted at that instant across my mind to let the weight fall on my master's skull, and thus crush him at my feet. But that gleam of my bygone courage died out, and I dropped the weight on the ground. The lame Roman seemed satisfied.