hiding the truth.

_Her_. Well, that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans
were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and
contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the
contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their
way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, alone and
all in one.

_Ly_. And, of course, it was other people who so described them; you
would not have taken their own word for their excellences.

_Her_. Certainly not; it was others who said it.

_Ly_. Not their rivals, I suppose?

_Her_. Oh, no.

_Ly_. Laymen, then?

_Her_. Just so.

_Ly_. There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a
blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at
the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and
philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they
said.

_Her_. But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely,
but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently