_Customer._--Now, so help me, the great ten and four, I never heard more
divine or more wonderful words!

_Pythagoras._--And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth,
and Air, and Water, and Fire--what is their action, and what their form,
and what their motion.

_Customer._--What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?

_Pythagoras._--Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how could
they move! Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in Number,
Mind, and Harmony.

_Customer._--What you say is really wonderful.

_Pythagoras._--Besides what I have just told you, you shall understand
that you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebody
else.

_Customer._--What! do you mean to say I’m somebody else, and not myself,
now talking to you?

_Pythagoras._--Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time you
appeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you will
pass again into another shape still.

(After a little more discussion of this philosopher’s tenets, he is
purchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Græca for ten
minæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic.)