He is also offensive enough to relate how the business has meant running about and anxiety, and he goes on to describe how he has got into trouble with other people and had no end of worry and some terrible experiences, until you declare that the thing was not worth it all. Any obligation thrown in your teeth will cause an unbearable and distressing sense of annoyance, but with an obligation from a time-server your sense of reproach and shame is felt at once, from the very moment that the service [Sidenote: B] is being rendered. A friend, on the other hand, if he has occasion to speak of the matter, qualifies his account of it, and about himself he says nothing. For example, the Lacedaemonians once sent the people of Smyrna some corn at a time of need, and, to their expressions of admiration of the kindness, they replied, ‘Not at all! To scrape this together we had only to vote the forgoing of one day’s dinner for ourselves and our beasts.’ A favour so rendered is not only a generous one; it is made the more welcome to the recipients by the thought that no great harm is done to the benefactor. It is not, however, by the flatterer’s offensive way of rendering his services nor by the recklessness of his promises that one [Sidenote: C] can best recognize the breed; an easier criterion consists in the creditable or discreditable nature of the service, and in the different character of the pleasure or benefit. A friend will not, as Gorgias asserted, expect his friend to render him honest services and yet himself oblige that friend in many ways which are not honest: _’Tis his to share the wisdom, not the folly._ Rather, therefore, he will dissuade him also from improper courses. And, if he fails, there is virtue in Phocion’s answer to Antipater, ‘You cannot use me both as friend and toady’—that is to say, both as friend and not friend. We must help a friend in his need, not in his knavery; in his planning, not in his plotting; with testimony, not conspiracy. Yes, and we must share in his misfortunes, though not in his misdeeds. We [Sidenote: D] should not choose even to be privy to the baseness of our friends; how then to be a party to their misbehaviour? When the Lacedaemonians, after their defeat by Antipater, were making terms, they stipulated that, though he might impose any penalty he liked, he should impose no disgrace. It is the same with a friend. Should occasion call for expense or danger or hard work, he is foremost in his claim to be summoned and take a prompt and zealous part; but when disgrace attaches to it, he will as promptly beg to be spared and left alone. But with the fawner it is the reverse. In services of difficulty and danger he cries off, and, if you give him a tap to sound him, his excuse—whatever [Sidenote: E] it may be—rings false and mean. But in vile and degrading little jobs, do as you like with him; trample on him; nothing shocks or insults him.