CHORUS (_to Sausage-seller_). Look out, look out! Come, outfence him with
some wheelwright slang?

SAUSAGE-SELLER. His tricks at Argos do not escape me. Under pretence of
forming an alliance with the Argives, he is hatching a plot with the
Lacedaemonians there; and I know why the bellows are blowing and the
metal that is on the anvil; 'tis the question of the prisoners.

CHORUS. Well done! Forge on, if he be a wheelwright.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. And there are men at Sparta[62] who are hammering the
iron with you; but neither gold nor silver nor prayers nor anything else
shall impede my denouncing your trickery to the Athenians.

CLEON. As for me, I hasten to the Senate to reveal your plotting, your
nightly gatherings in the city, your trafficking with the Medes and with
the Great King, and all you are foraging for in Boeotia.[63]

SAUSAGE-SELLER. What price then is paid for forage by Boeotians?

CLEON. Oh! by Heracles! I will tan your hide.

CHORUS. Come, if you have both wit and heart, now is the time to show it,
as on the day when you hid the meat in your breeches, as you say. Hasten
to the Senate, for he will rush there like a tornado to calumniate us all
and give vent to his fearful bellowings.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. I am going, but first I must rid myself of my tripe and
my knives; I will leave them here.