“Asclepiades, the miser, in his house Espied one day, to his surprise, a mouse. ‘Tell me, dear mouse,’ he cried, ‘to what cause is it I owe this pleasant but unlooked-for visit?’ The mouse said, smiling, ‘Fear not for your hoard; I come, my friend, to lodge, and not to board.’” ANON _CONVENIENT PARTNERSHIP_ “Damon, who plied the undertaker’s trade, With Doctor Crateas an agreement made. What linens Damon from the dead could seize, He to the doctor sent for bandages; While the good doctor, here no promise-breaker, Sent all his patients to the undertaker.” ANON _LONG AND SHORT_ “Dick cannot blow his nose whene’er he pleases His nose so long is, and his arm so short; Nor ever cries, ‘God bless me!’ when he sneezes-- He cannot hear so distant a report.” ANON _THE LERNEANS_ “Lerneans are bad: not some bad and some not But all; there’s not a Lernean in the lot, Save Procles, that you could a good man call. But Procles--is a Lernean, after all.” ANON _PERPLEXITY_ “Sad Heraclitus, with thy tears return; Life more than ever gives us cause to mourn. Democritus, dear droll, revisit earth; Life more than ever gives us cause for mirth. Between you both I stand in thoughtful pother, How I should weep with one, how laugh with t’other.” Beside his short poems, we quote a little of the prose of LUCIAN _A QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE_ ZEUS, ÆSCULAPIUS, _and_ HERACLES “_Zeus._ Do, Æsculapius and Heracles, stop your wrangling, in which you indulge as if you were a couple of mortals; for this sort of behavior is unseemly, and quite strange to the banquets of the gods. “_Heracles._ But, Zeus, would you have that quack drug-dealer there take his place at table above me? “_Æsculapius._ By Zeus, yes, for I am certainly the better man. “_Heracles._ How, you thunderstruck fellow, is it, pray, because Zeus knocked you on the head with his bolt for your unlawful actions, and because now, out of mere pity, by way of compensation, you have got a share of immortality? “_Æsculapius._ What! have you, for your part, Heracles, altogether forgotten your having been burned to ashes on Mount Œta, that you throw in my teeth this fire you talk of?