CLI. Certainly. The two princes, your lovers, were there.

ERI. The river Peneus has here the most charming windings.

CLI. Very charming. Sostratus was there also.

ERI. How is it that he was not with us to-day?

CLI. He has something on his mind which prevents him from taking any
pleasure in all those beautiful entertainments. He wanted to tell me
something; but you have so expressly forbidden me to intercede for any
one to you that I would not hear him, and I told him flatly that I had
no leisure.

ERI. You were wrong to say such a thing to him, and you ought to have
heard him.

CLI. I told him at first that I was not at leisure to hear him; but
afterwards I listened to what be had to say.

ERI. You did well.

CLI. In fact, he is a man after my own heart; a man with all the
manners and qualities I should like to see in all men. He never
assumes boisterous manners and provoking tones of voice, but is
prudent and careful in everything. He never speaks but to the point,
is never hasty in his decisions, is never annoying by his
exaggerations. However fine may be the verses our poets repeat to him,
I have never heard him say, "This is more beautiful than anything that
Homer ever wrote." In short, he is a man to my taste; and if I were a