at the fire of the baths;--or when you are fighting with beggars
and beggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice;--or when you are
glad to earn three wretched obols (The stipend of an Athenian
juryman.) by listening all day to lying speeches and crying
children.

SPEUSIPPUS.
There are other means of support.

CALLIDEMUS.
What! I suppose you will wander from house to house, like that
wretched buffoon Philippus (Xenophon; Convivium.), and beg
everybody who has asked a supper-party to be so kind as to feed
you and laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a
bunch of grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening
some rich coward with a mock prosecution. Well! that is a task
for which your studies under the sophists may have fitted you.

SPEUSIPPUS.
You are wide of the mark.

CALLIDEMUS.
Then what, in the name of Juno, is your scheme? Do you intend to
join Orestes (A celebrated highwayman of Attica. See
Aristophanes; Aves, 711; and in several other passages.), and rob
on the highway? Take care; beware of the eleven (The police
officers of Athens.); beware of the hemlock. It may be very
pleasant to live at other people's expense; but not very
pleasant, I should think, to hear the pestle give its last bang
against the mortar, when the cold dose is ready. Pah!--