DEMOS. Come, Agoracritus, come, my best friend; see the service you have done me by freshening me up on your stove. AGORACRITUS. Ah! if you but remembered what you were formerly and what you did, you would for a certainty believe me to be a god. DEMOS. But what did I? and how was I then? AGORACRITUS. Firstly, so soon as ever an orator declared in the assembly "Demos, I love you ardently; 'tis I alone, who dream of you and watch over your interests"; at such an exordium you would look like a cock flapping his wings or a bull tossing his horns. DEMOS. What, I? AGORACRITUS. Then, after he had fooled you to the hilt, he would go. DEMOS. What! they would treat me so, and I never saw it! AGORACRITUS. You knew only how to open and close your ears like a sunshade. DEMOS. Was I then so stupid and such a dotard? AGORACRITUS. Worse than that; if one of two orators proposed to equip a fleet for war and the other suggested the use of the same sum for paying out to the citizens, 'twas the latter who always carried the day. Well! you droop your head! you turn away your face? DEMOS. I redden at my past errors. AGORACRITUS. Think no more of them; 'tis not you who are to blame, but those who cheated you in this sorry fashion. But, come, if some impudent lawyer dared to say, "Dicasts, you shall have no wheat unless you convict this accused man!" what would you do? Tell me. DEMOS. I would have him removed from the bar, I would bind Hyperbolus about his neck like a stone and would fling him into the Barathrum.[143] AGORACRITUS. Well spoken! but what other measures do you wish to take? DEMOS. First, as soon as ever a fleet returns to the harbour, I shall pay up the rowers in full. AGORACRITUS. That will soothe many a worn and chafed bottom. DEMOS. Further, the hoplite enrolled for military service shall not get transferred to another service through favour, but shall stick to that given him at the outset. AGORACRITUS. This will strike the buckler of Cleonymus full in the centre. DEMOS. None shall ascend the rostrum, unless their chins are bearded. AGORACRITUS. What then will become of Clisthenes and of Strato?[144] DEMOS. I wish only to refer to those youths, who loll about the perfume shops, babbling at random, "What a clever fellow is Pheax![145] How cleverly he escaped death! how concise and convincing is his style! what phrases! how clear and to the point! how well he knows how to quell an interruption!" AGORACRITUS. I thought you were the lover of those pathic minions. DEMOS. The gods forefend it! and I will force all such fellows to go a-hunting instead of proposing decrees. AGORACRITUS. In that case, accept this folding-stool, and to carry it this well-grown, big-testicled slave lad. Besides, you may put him to any other purpose you please. DEMOS. Oh! I am happy indeed to find myself as I was of old! AGORACRITUS. Aye, you deem yourself happy, when I shall have handed you the truces of thirty years. Truces! step forward![146]