charms whereby he could get what he chose out of anybody. 'Will it
surprise you to learn that I am a fellow-craftsman?' asked Demonax;
'pray come with me to the baker's, and you shall see a single
charm, just one wave of my magic wand, induce him to bestow several
loaves upon me.' Current coin, he meant, is as good a magician as
most.

The great Herodes, mourning the untimely death of Pollux, used to
have the carriage and horses got ready, and the place laid at
table, as though the dead were going to drive and eat. To him came
Demonax, saying that he brought a message from Pollux. Herodes,
delighted with the idea that Demonax was humouring his whim like
other people, asked what it was that Pollux required of him. 'He
cannot think why you are so long coming to him.'

When another person kept himself shut up in the dark, mourning his
son, Demonax represented himself to him as a magician: he would
call up the son's ghost, the only condition being that he should be
given the names of three people who had never had to mourn. The
father hum'd and ha'd, unable, doubtless, to produce any such
person, till Demonax broke in: 'And have you, then, a monopoly of
the unendurable, when you cannot name a man who has not some grief
to endure?'

He often ridiculed the people who use obsolete and uncommon words
in their lectures. One of these produced a bit of Attic purism in
answer to some question he had put. 'My dear sir,' he said, 'the
date of my question is to-day; that of your answer is _temp_.
_Bell_. _Troj_.'