Yet we often put a question to a person, not because we need the information, but by way of eliciting from him a few words of a friendly nature, or from a wish to lead him on to converse, as Socrates did with Theaetetus and Charmides. To take the answer out of another’s mouth, to divert attention to yourself and wrest it from another, is as bad as if, when a person desired to be kissed by some one else, you ran forward and kissed him yourself, or as if, when he was looking at another, you twisted him round in your own direction. The right and proper [Sidenote: C] course, even if the person who is asked for information cannot give it, is to wait, to take your cue to answer from the wish of the questioner—his invitation not having been addressed to you—and then to meet the situation in a modest and mannerly way. If a person of whom a question is asked makes a mistake in answering it, he meets with a due measure of indulgence; but one who pushes himself forward and insists on answering first, receives no welcome if he is right, while, if he is wrong, he becomes an object of positive exultation and derision. The second item of our regimen concerns the answering of questions put to ourselves. Our garrulous friend must be particularly careful with these. In the first place he must not be deceived into giving serious replies to those who merely provoke him into a discussion in order to make a laughing-stock of him. [Sidenote: D] Sometimes persons who require no information simply concoct a question for the amusement and fun of the thing, and submit it to a character of this kind in order to set his foolish tongue wagging. Against this trick he must be on his guard. Instead of promptly jumping at the subject as if he were grateful, he should consider both the character of the questioner and the necessity for the question. And when it is clear that information is really desired, he must make a habit of waiting and leaving some interval between question and answer. There will then be time for the inquirer to add anything he wishes, and for himself to reflect upon his reply, instead of overrunning and muddling the question, hurriedly giving [Sidenote: E] first one answer and then another while the question is still going on. The Pythian priestess, of course, is accustomed to deliver oracles on the instant, even before the question is asked, inasmuch as the God whom she serves _Understandeth the dumb, and heareth a man though he speak not._ But if you wish your answer to be to the purpose, you must wait for the questioner’s thought to be expressed, and discover [Sidenote: F] precisely what he is aiming at. Otherwise it will be a case of the old saying: _Asked for a bucket, they refused a tub._