Come now, O Dromon, if you aught do know, Wise or accomplish'd in your business, Or fit to charm the eyes, reveal it straight To me your master. For I ask you now For a brief exhibition of your skill. I'm leading you into an enemy's country; Come gaily to the charge. They'll weigh the meat And count the joints they give you, and they'll watch you: But you, by boiling them to pieces, will Not only make them tender, but confuse The number of the pieces, so as quite To upset all their calculations. They bring you a fine fish;—his tail is yours. And if you filch a slice, that, too, is yours. While we are in the house: when we've got out It then belongs to me. Th' ἐξαιρέσεις, And all the other parts, which can't be counted, In which you cannot easily be found out, Which may be class'd as parings and as scrapings, Shall make a feast for you and me to-morrow. And let the porter share in all your spoils, That you may pass his gate with his good-will. Why need I say much to a prudent man? You are my pupil, I am your preceptor, Remember this, and come along with me. [Sidenote: LEARNED COOKS.] 28. And so when we had all praised the cook for the readiness of his discourse, and for the exceeding perfection of his skill, our excellent entertainer Laurentius said—And how much better it is for cooks to learn such things as these, than as they do with one whom I could mention of our fellow-citizens, who having had his head turned by riches and luxury, compelled his cooks to learn the dialogues of the incomparable Plato, and when they were bringing in dishes to say, "One, two, three, but where is the fourth, O most excellent Timæus, of those who were guests yesterday, but who are hosts to-day?" Then another made answer, "An illness has overtaken him, O Socrates,"—and so they went through the whole dialogue in this manner, so that those who were at the feast were very indignant, and so that that all-accomplished man was laughed at and insulted every day, and that on this account many most respectable men refused all invitations to his entertainments. But these cooks of ours, who are perhaps just as well instructed in these things as he was, give us no little pleasure. And then the slave who had been praised for his cleverness as a cook, said,—Now what have my predecessors ever devised or told us of a similar kind to this? and is not my behaviour moderate enough, since I do not boast myself? And yet Coroebus the Elean, who was the first man who ever was crowned as victor in the Olympic games, was a cook; and yet he was not as proud of his skill and of his art as the cook in Straton in the Phœnicides, concerning whom the man who had hired him speaks thus—