When the trumpeter sounds the signal for a fresh onset, he exclaims as he sits in his tent: “Plague take him! He won’t let the poor fellow get to sleep with his eternal bugling.” Then, staining himself with blood from the other’s wound, he meets the troops as they return from battle, and pretending to have been in the thick of the fight, he exclaims, “I’ve saved a comrade!” And then he takes his demesmen and tribesmen into the tent, and assures each one of them that he himself brought the wounded man to the tent with his own hands. [9] Apparently the reference is to the Samothracian mysteries, initiation in which was thought to ensure protection at sea in time of danger. [10] “The sight of a sword wounds him more sensibly than the stroke, for before that comes hee is dead already.” Earle’s _Micro-cosmographie_, “The Coward.” IV _The Over-zealous Man_ (Περιεργία) Over-zealousness is an excess in saying or doing,—with good intentions, of course. The over-zealous man is one who gets up in public and engages to do things which he cannot perform. In cases where no doubt exists in the mind of anyone else, he raises some objection—only to be refuted. At a banquet, he forces the servants to mix more wine than the guests can drink. If he sees two men in a quarrel, he strives to part them though he knows neither one. Leaving the main road he leads his friends upon a by-path and presently cannot find his way. He accosts his commander and inquires when he is going to draw up the troops for battle, and what orders he intends to issue for day after to-morrow. He goes and tells his father that his mother is already asleep in her chamber. If the doctor gives instructions that no wine be given a patient, he administers “just a little,” on the plea that he wants to set the sufferer right. And when a woman dies, he has carved on the tombstone her husband’s name, and her father’s and her mother’s, along with the woman’s own name and her native place, and adds: “Worthy people, all of them.” In court, as he takes the oath, he remarks to the bystanders, “I have done this many a time before.” V _The Tactless Man_ (Ἀκαιρία) Tactlessness is the faculty of hitting a moment that is unpleasant to the persons concerned. The tactless man is the sort of person who selects a man’s busy hour to go and confer with him. He serenades his sweetheart when she has a fever. If an acquaintance has just lost bail-money on a friend, he hunts him up and asks him to be his surety. After a verdict has been rendered he appears at the trial to give evidence. At a wedding where he is a guest he declaims against womankind.