Apparently the importance of the issue with which he was dealing turned him dizzy; he with difficulty grasped the idea that, trusting in the desperate hopes of exiles, these men were in some fashion about to attempt to overthrow the Lacedæmonian government in Thebes, and the power of Sparta. He went quietly home, and sent one of his friends to Mellon and Pelopidas, bidding them put off their design for the present, to go back to Athens, and await a better opportunity. Chlidon was the name of the messenger, and he hurriedly went to his own house, and, leading out his horse, asked for his bridle. His wife was at her wit's end, as she had it not to give him, but she said that she had lent it to a neighbour. Hereupon there was a quarrel, and words of ill omen were used, for his wife said that she wished it might be a bad journey for him, and for those that sent him; so that Chlidon, having wasted a great part of the day in this squabble, and also drawing a bad augury from what had happened, gave up his journey altogether, and betook himself to something else. So near was this greatest and most glorious of his adventures of missing its opportunity at its very outset. IX. Now Pelopidas and his party changed their clothes with country people, and separating, came into the city by different ways while it was still daylight. There was a strong wind, and the weather was snowy, so that they were the less noticed, as most people had betaken themselves to their houses on account of the storm; but those who were in the plot met them as they entered, and brought them to Charon's house. With the exiles, they amounted to forty-eight in all.