SPEUSIPPUS.
Hemlock? Orestes! folly!--I aim at nobler objects. What say you
to politics,--the general assembly?

CALLIDEMUS.
You an orator!--oh no! no! Cleon was worth twenty such fools as
you. You have succeeded, I grant, to his impudence, for which,
if there be justice in Tartarus, he is now soaking up to the eyes
in his own tanpickle. But the Paphlagonian had parts.

SPEUSIPPUS.
And you mean to imply--

CALLIDEMUS.
Not I. You are a Pericles in embryo, doubtless. Well: and when
are you to make your first speech? O Pallas!

SPEUSIPPUS.
I thought of speaking, the other day, on the Sicilian expedition;
but Nicias (See Thucydides, vi. 8.) got up before me.

CALLIDEMUS.
Nicias, poor honest man, might just as well have sate still; his
speaking did but little good. The loss of your oration is,
doubtless, an irreparable public calamity.

SPEUSIPPUS.
Why, not so; I intend to introduce it at the next assembly; it
will suit any subject.