Sometimes they work themselves into closer and more intimate touch with a trouble or a malady, till they come to participate in afflictions of the most secret kind. If they see [Sidenote: 54] that the patron is unhappy in his marriage or on bad terms with his sons or his relatives, they do not spare themselves, but make lamentations about their own children, or wife, or relatives, or friends, on certain alleged grounds which they divulge as a miserable secret. Such similarity creates a closer understanding with their patron. He has received a sort of hostage, thereupon betrays to them some secret or other, and, because of that betrayal, keeps friends with them and is afraid to leave his confidence to its fate. I know of one time-server who, when the patron divorced his wife, turned his own wife also out of doors. It was, however, found out—through a discovery [Sidenote: B] of the patron’s wife—that he was visiting and sending messages to her in secret. The toady must have been but little known to the man who thought that the lines: _Body all belly, and an eye that looks All round; a thing that crawls upon its teeth_, were as apt a description for a crab as they are for the flatterer. The picture is that of the parasite: _The friend of saucepan-time and dinner-hour_, as Eupolis expresses it. This point, however, we will reserve till its proper place. Meanwhile we must not omit to mention another shrewd trick played by the time-server when he imitates you. If he goes so far as to copy some good quality in the person whom he [Sidenote: C] toadies, he is careful to leave the advantage with him. Friends in the true sense are neither jealous nor envious of each other, and, whether they reach or fail to reach the same degree of excellence, they accept the situation fairly and without a grudge. But the toady—who never forgets to play second rôle—lets his resemblance fall short of equality, and owns to being distanced at everything but vices. In vices, however, he insists on first prize. If the patron is irritable, he says, ‘_I_ am all bile;’ if superstitious, ‘_I_ am a mass of fears;’ if love-sick, ‘_I_ am frantic.’ [Sidenote: D] ‘It was wrong of you to laugh,’ he will say, ‘but _I_ was absolutely dying with laughter.’ But where virtues are concerned it is the other way about. ‘I am a fast runner, but _you_ positively fly.’ ‘I am a tolerable horseman, but nothing to a centaur like our friend here.’ ‘I have a neat turn for poetry, and can write a line better than some, but _Thunder is not for me, ’tis work for Zeus._’ He thus appears to do two things at once—to give an air of merit to his patron’s tastes by imitating them, and of unapproachableness to his ability by failing to match it. So much for the differences between fawner and friend in the midst of their resemblances.