As for the merchant, he got rid of his slaves, with the exception of a grammarian, a singer, and Æsop, whom he intended to expose for sale at Samos. Before taking them to the market-place he had the two first dressed as well as he could, whilst Æsop, on the other hand, was only clad in an old sack, and placed between his two companions to set them off. Some intending purchasers soon presented themselves, and amongst others a philosopher named Xantus. He asked of the grammarian and the singer what they could do. "Everything," they replied; on which Æsop laughed in a manner which may be well imagined, and, indeed, Planudes asserts that his grin was so terrible that the bystanders were almost on the point of taking flight. The merchant valued the singer at a thousand oboli, the grammarian at three thousand, and said that whoever first purchased one of the two should have the other thrown in. The high price of the singer and the grammarian disgusted Xantus, but, that he might not return home without having made some purchase, his disciples persuaded him to buy that little make-believe of a man who had laughed with such exquisite grace. He would be useful as a scarecrow, said some; as a buffoon, said others. Xantus allowed himself to be persuaded, and consented to give sixty oboli for Æsop, but before he completed the bargain demanded of him, as he had of his comrades, for what work he was fitted; to which Æsop replied, "For nothing, as his two companions had monopolised all possible work." The clerk of the market, taking the droll nature of the purchase into consideration, graciously excused Xantus from paying the usual fee.