CHORUS. What unparalleled impudence! 'Tis ever the same brazen front. If I don't hate you, why, I'm ready to take the place of the one blanket Cratinus wets;[48] I'll offer to play a tragedy by Morsimus.[49] Oh! you cheat! who turn all into money, who flutter from one extortion to another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event!"[50] Then even the son of Iulius,[51] the old niggard, would empty his cup with transports of joy, crying, "Io, Paean! Io, Bacchus!" CLEON. By Posidon! You! would you beat me in impudence! If you succeed, may I no longer have my share of the victims offered to Zeus on the city altar. SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I, I swear by the blows that have so oft rained upon my shoulders since infancy, and by the knives that have cut me, that I will show more effrontery than you; as sure as I have rounded this fine stomach by feeding on the pieces of bread that had cleansed other folk's greasy fingers.[52] CLEON. On pieces of bread, like a dog! Ah! wretch! you have the nature of a dog and you dare to fight a cynecephalus?[53] SAUSAGE-SELLER. I have many another trick in my sack, memories of my childhood's days. I used to linger around the cooks and say to them, "Look, friends, don't you see a swallow? 'tis the herald of springtime." And while they stood, their noses in the air, I made off with a piece of meat. CHORUS. Oh! most clever man! How well thought out! You did as the eaters of artichokes, you gathered them before the return of the swallows.[54] SAUSAGE-SELLER. They could make nothing of it; or, if they suspected a trick, I hid the meat in my breeches and denied the thing by all the gods; so that an orator, seeing me at the game, cried, "This child will get on; he has the mettle that makes a statesman." CHORUS. He argued rightly; to steal, perjure yourself and make a receiver of your rump[55] are three essentials for climbing high. CLEON. I will stop your insolence, or rather the insolence of both of you. I will throw myself upon you like a terrible hurricane ravaging both land and sea at the will of its fury. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Then I will gather up my sausages and entrust myself to the kindly waves of fortune so as to make you all the more enraged. DEMOSTHENES. And I will watch in the bilges in case the boat should make water. CLEON. No, by Demeter! I swear, 'twill not be with impunity that you have thieved so many talents from the Athenians.[56] CHORUS (_to the Sausage-seller_). Oh! oh! reef your sail a bit! Here is Boreas blowing calumniously. CLEON. I know that you got ten talents out of Potidaea.[57] SAUSAGE-SELLER. Hold! I will give you one; but keep it dark! CHORUS. Hah! that will please him mightily; now you can travel under full sail. SAUSAGE-SELLER. Yes, the wind has lost its violence. CLEON. I will bring four suits against you, each of one hundred talents.[58]