Phædrus relates several stories showing the characteristic readiness of the sage. A mean fellow, seeing Æsop in the street, threw a stone at him. 'Well done!' was his response to the unmannerly action. 'See! here is a penny for you; on my faith it is all I have, but I will tell you how you may get something more. See, yonder comes a rich and influential man. Throw a stone at him in the same way, and you will receive a due reward.' The rude fool, being persuaded, did as he was advised. His daring impudence, however, brought him a requital he did not hope for, though it was what he deserved, for, being seized, he paid the penalty. Æsop in this incident exhibited not only his ready wit, but his deep craft, inasmuch as he brought condign punishment upon his persecutor by the hand of another, though he himself, being only a slave, might be insulted with impunity. An Athenian, seeing Æsop at play in the midst of a crowd of boys, stopped and laughed and jeered at him for a madman. The sage, a laugher at others rather than one to be laughed at, perceiving this, placed an unstrung bow in the middle of the road. 'Hark you, wise man,' said he; 'unriddle what this means.' The people gathered round, whilst the man tormented his invention for a long time, trying to frame an answer to the riddle; but at last he gave it up. Upon this the victorious philosopher said: 'The bow will soon break if you always keep it bent, but relax it occasionally, and it will be fit for use, and strong, when it is wanted'--a piece of sound advice which others than the wiseacre chiefly concerned would find it advantageous to practise. A would-be author had recited some worthless composition to Æsop, in which was contained an inordinate eulogy of himself and his own powers, and, desiring to know what the sage thought about it, asked: 'Does it appear to you that I have been too conceited? I have no empty confidence in my own capacity.' Worried to death with the execrable production, Æsop replied: 'I greatly approve of your bestowing praise on yourself, for it will never be your lot to receive it from another.' In the course of a conversation, being asked by Chilo (one of the wise men of Greece), 'What is the employment of the gods?' Æsop's answer was: 'To depress the proud and exalt the humble.' And in allusion to the sorrows inseparable from the human lot, his explanation, at once striking and poetical, was that 'Prometheus having taken earth to form mankind, moistened and tempered it, not with water, but with tears.'