Hermotimus

Lycinus Well, then—most of your account I followed and accepted —how they grow wise and brave and just, and the rest—indeed I was quite fascinated by it; but then you went on to say they despised wealth and glory and pleasure; well, just there (quite between ourselves, you know) I was pulled up; I thought of

Hermotimus No, no; we must have that too.

Lycinus Your own professor himself, then,—a person to whom all respect is due, surely, not to mention his years.

Hermotimus Well?

Lycinus You know the Heracleot, quite an old pupil of his in philosophy by this time—red-haired—likes an argument?

Hermotimus Yes; Dion, he is called.

Lycinus Well, I suppose he had not paid up punctually; anyhow the other day the old man haled him before the magistrate, with a halter made of his own coat; he was shouting and fuming, and if some friends had not come up and got the young man out of his hands, he would have bitten off his nose, he was in such a temper.

Hermotimus Ah, be is a bad character, always an unconscionable time paying his debts. There are plenty of others who owe the professor money, and he has never treated any of them so; they pay him his interest punctually.

Lycinus Not so fast; what in the world does it matter to him, if they do not pay up? he is purified by philosophy, and has no further need of the cast clothes of Oeta.

Hermotimus Do you suppose his interest in such things is selfish? no, but he has little ones; his care is to save them from indigence.

Lycinus Whereas he ought to have brought them up to Virtue too, and let them share his inexpensive Happiness.