Another instance of how Apollonius turned chance happenings to good account is the following. Once at Ephesus, in one of the covered walks near the city, he was speaking of sharing our goods with others, and how we ought mutually to help one another. It chanced that a number of sparrows were sitting on a tree hard by in perfect silence. Suddenly another sparrow flew up and began chirping, as though it wanted to tell the others something. Whereupon the little fellows all set to a-chirping also, and flew away after the new-comer. Apollonius’ superstitious audience were greatly struck by this conduct of the sparrows, and thought it was an augury of some important matter. But the philosopher continued with his sermon. The sparrow, he said, has invited his friends to a banquet. A boy slipped down in a lane hard by and spilt some corn he was carrying in a bowl; he picked up most of it and went away. The little sparrow, chancing on the scattered grains, immediately flew off to invite his friends to the feast. Thereon most of the crowd went off at a run to see if it were true, and when they came back shouting and all agog with wonderment, the philosopher continued: “Ye see what care the sparrows take of one another, and how happy they are to share with all their goods. And yet we men do not approve; nay, if we see a man sharing his goods with other men, we call it wastefulness, extravagance, and by such names, and dub the men to whom he gives a share, fawners and parasites. What then is left to us except to shut us up at home like fattening birds, and gorge our bellies in the dark until we burst with fat?” (iv. 3). On another occasion, at Smyrna, Apollonius, seeing a ship getting under weigh, used the occasion for teaching the people the lesson of co-operation. “Behold the vessel’s crew!” he said. “How some have manned the boats, some raise the anchors up and make them fast, some set the sails to catch the wind, how others yet again look out at bow and stern. But if a single man should fail to do a single one of these his duties, or bungle in his seamanship, their sailing will be bad, and they will have the storm among them. But if they strive in rivalry each with the other, their only strife being that no man shall seem worse than his mates, fair havens shall there be for such a ship, and all good weather and fair voyage crowd in upon it” (iv. 9). Again, on another occasion, at Rhodes, Damis asked him if he thought anything greater than the famous Colossus. “I do,” replied Apollonius; “the man who walks in wisdom’s guileless paths that give us health” (v. 21). There is also a number of instances of witty or sarcastic answers reported of our philosopher, and indeed, in spite of his generally grave mood, he not unfrequently rallied his hearers, and sometimes, if we may say so, chaffed the foolishness out of them (see especially iv. 30).