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Samippus A good idea. I am your man; I undertake to wish when my turn comes, We need not ask Adimantus whether

Lycinus Why, let us to our wealth, if so it must be. Where all is prosperity, I would not be thought to cast an evil eye.

Adimantus Who begins?

Lycinus You; and then Samippus, and then Timolaus. I shall only want the last hundred yards or so before the Gate for mine, and a quick hundred, too.

Adimantus Well, I stick to my ship still; only I shall wish some more things, as it is allowed. May the God of Luck say Yes to all! I will have the ship, and everything in her; the cargo, the merchants, the women, the sailors, and anything else that is particularly nice to have.

Samippus You forget one thing you have on board —

Adimantus Oh, the boy with the hair; yes, him too. And instead of the present cargo of wheat, I will have the same bulk of coined gold, all sovereigns.

Lycinus Hullo! The ship will sink. Wheat and gold to the same bulk are not of the same weight.

Adimantus Now, don’t make envious remarks, When your turn comes, you can have the whole of Parnes turned into a mass of gold if you like, and I shall say nothing.

Lycinus Oh, I was only thinking of your safety. I don’t want all hands to go down with the golden cargo. It would not matter so much about us, but the poor boy would be drowned; he can’t swim.

Timolaus Oh, that will be all right. The dolphins will pick him up and get him to shore. Shall a paltry musician be rescued by them for a song’s sake, a lifeless Melicertes be carried on their backs to the Isthmus, and Adimantus’s latest purchase find never an amorous dolphin at his need?

Adimantus Timolaus, you are just as bad as Lycinus, with your superfluous sneers. You ought to know better; it was all your idea.

Timolaus You should make it more plausible. Find a treasure under your bed; that would save unloading the gold, and getting it up to town.

Adimantus Oh yes! It shall be dug up from under the Hermes in our court; a thousand bushels of coined gold. Well; my first thought has been for a handsome house,—‘the homestead first and chiefest,’ says Hesiod; and my purchases in the neighbourhood are now complete; there remains my property at Delphi, and the sea-front at Eleusis; and a little something at the Isthmus (I might want to stop there for the games); and the plain of Sicyon; and in short every scrap of land in the country where there is nice shade, or a good stream, or fine fruit; I reserve them all. We will eat off gold plate; and our cups shall weigh 100 lb. apiece; I will have none of the flimsy ware that appears on Echecrates’s table.

Lycinus I daresay! And how is your cupbearer going to hand you a thing of that weight, when he has filled it? And how will you like taking it from him? It would tax the muscles of a Sisyphus, let alone a cupbearer’s.

Adimantus Oh, don’t keep on picking holes in my Wish. I shall have tables and couches of solid gold, if I like; and servants too, if you say another word.

Lycinus Well, take care, or you will be like Midas, with nothing but gold to eat and drink; and die of a right royal hunger, a martyr to superabundance.

Adimantus Your turn will come presently, Lycinus, and then you can be as realistic as you like.

To proceed: I must have purple raiment, and every luxury, and sleep as late as I like; with friends to come and pay court to me, and every one bowing down to the ground; and they will all have to wait about at my doors from early morning—the great Cleaenetus and Democritus among them; oh yes, and when they come and try to get in before every one else, seven great foreign giants of porters