almost think I'm talking to him now! Gawd's truth, we're only blown-up
bladders strutting around, we're less than flies, for they have some good
in them, but we're only bubbles. And supposing he had not kept to such a
low diet! Why, not a drop of water or a crumb of bread so much as passed
his lips for five days; and yet he joined the majority! Too many doctors
did away with him, or rather, his time had come, for a doctor's not good
for anything except for a consolation to your mind! He was well carried
out, anyhow, in the very bed he slept in during his lifetime. And he was
covered with a splendid pall: the mourning was tastefully managed; he had
freed some slaves; even though his wife was sparing with her tears: and
what if he hadn't treated her so well! But when you come to women, women
all belong to the kite species: no one ought to waste a good turn upon
one of them; it's just like throwing it down a well! An old love's like
a cancer!"




CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.

He was becoming very tiresome, and Phileros cried out, "Let's think about
the living! He has what was coming to him, he lived respectably, and
respectably he died. What's he got to kick about'? He made his pile
from an as, and would pick a quadrans out of a dunghill with his teeth,
any old time. And he grew richer and richer, of course: just like a
honeycomb. I expect that he left all of a hundred thousand, by Hercules,
I do! All in cold cash, too; but I've eaten dog's tongue and must speak
the truth: he was foul-mouthed, had a ready tongue, he was a trouble
maker and no man. Now his brother was a good fellow, a friend to his
friend, free-handed, and he kept a liberal table. He picked a loser at