He distrusts even friends and kinsmen, while his most important secrets are shared with his domestics, and he tells all the news of the Assembly to his farm hands. Nothing awakens his admiration or startles him on the streets so much as the sight of an ox, an ass, or a goat, and then he stands agape in contemplation.[30] He is the sort of man who snatches a bite from the pantry and drinks his liquor straight. He has clandestine talks with the cook and helps her grind the meal for his household. At breakfast he throws bits to the animals about the table. He answers the knock at the door himself and then whistles for his dog, takes him by the nose, and says: “Here’s the keeper of my house and grounds!” When a man offers him a coin he declines it, saying it is too worn, and takes another piece in its stead. After loaning a plough, basket, sickle, or sack, he goes after it, unable to sleep for thinking of it. When he goes to town he inquires of any chance passer-by: “What are hides selling for? What’s the price of bacon? Does the celebration of New Moon come to-day?” Then he remarks he must go down street and have his hair cut, and while in town must also run into the shop of Archias and buy the bacon. He sings in the public baths and wears hob-nailed boots. [30] “Hee is sensible of no calamitie but the burning of a stacke of corne or the overflowing of a medow, and thinks Noah’s flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoyl’d the grasse.” Earle’s _Micro-cosmographie_, “A Plaine Country Fellow.” XXIII _The Penurious Man_ (Ἀνελευθερία) Penuriousness is the grudging of expense and is due to great love of money and little love of honor. The penurious man, after a victory on the tragic stage, sets up a wooden chaplet to Dionysus, on which he inscribes his own name. If contributions from the public are asked for, he is silent or rises and quits the company. When he gives his daughter in marriage, he sells the sacrificial offerings, excepting the parts that belong by law to the priests. At the wedding, he employs only servants who will eat at home. As trierarch[31] he takes the pilot’s blankets and spreads them on deck for himself, while he puts his own away. He is the sort of man who keeps his children from school when a festival comes, and makes excuses for them on the plea of ill-health, that he may avoid the fee for tuition. When he goes to market, he brings the meat home with him, carrying the vegetables in the folds of his cloak. He stays indoors when he sends his tunic to the cleaner. If he catches sight of a friend coming towards him and soliciting contributions, he sneaks off through a by-street and goes home by a roundabout way. He employs no maid for his wife, although she brought him a dowry, but hires a child from the woman’s market to accompany her on her errands.