_Seventh D_. I suppose I am. _Chrys_. Therefore you are a body. Therefore a stone. _Seventh D_. Mercy, in Heaven's name! Unstone me, and let me be flesh as heretofore. _Chrys_. That is soon done. Back with you into flesh! Thus: Is every body animate? _Seventh D_. No. _Chrys_. Is a stone animate? _Seventh D_. No. _Chrys_. Now, you are a body? _Seventh D_. Yes. _Chrys_. And an animate body? _Seventh D_. Yes. _Chrys_. Then being animate, you cannot be a stone. _Seventh D_. Ah! thank you, thank you. I was beginning to feel my limbs growing numb and solidifying like Niobe's. Oh, I must have you. What's to pay? _Her_. Fifty pounds. _Seventh D_. Here it is. _Her_. Are you sole purchaser? _Seventh D_. Not I. All these gentlemen here are going shares. _Her_. A fine strapping lot of fellows, and will do the 'Reaper' credit. _Zeus_. Don't waste time. Next lot,—the Peripatetic! _Her_. Now, my beauty, now, Affluence! Gentlemen, if you want Wisdom for your money, here is a creed that comprises all knowledge. _Eighth D_. What is he like? _Her_. He is temperate, good-natured, easy to get on with; and his strong point is, that he is twins. _Eighth D_. How can that be? _Her_. Why, he is one creed outside, and another inside. So remember, if you buy him, one of him is called Esoteric, and the other Exoteric. _Eighth D_. And what has he to say for himself? _Her_. He has to say that there are three kinds of good: spiritual, corporeal, circumstantial. _Eighth D_. _There's_ something a man can understand. How much is he? _Her_. Eighty pounds. _Eighth D_. Eighty pounds is a long price. _Her_. Not at all, my dear sir, not at all. You see, there is some money with him, to all appearance. Snap him up before it is too late. Why, from him you will find out in no time how long a gnat lives, to how many fathoms' depth the sunlight penetrates the sea, and what an oyster's soul is like. _Eighth D_. Heracles! Nothing escapes him. _Her_. Ah, these are trifles. You should hear some of his more abstruse speculations, concerning generation and birth and the development of the embryo; and his distinction between man, the laughing creature, and the ass, which is neither a laughing nor a carpentering nor a shipping creature. _Eighth D_. Such knowledge is as useful as it is ornamental. Eighty pounds be it, then. _Her_. He is yours. _Zeus_. What have we left? _Her_. There is Scepticism. Come along, Pyrrhias, and be put up. Quick's the word. The attendance is dwindling; there will be small competition. Well, who buys Lot 9? _Ninth D_. I. Tell me first, though, what do you know? _Sc_. Nothing. _Ninth D_. But how's that? _Sc_. There does not appear to me to _be_ anything. _Ninth D_. Are not _we_ something? _Sc_. How do I know that? _Ninth D_. And you yourself? _Sc_. Of that I am still more doubtful. _Ninth D_. Well, you _are_ in a fix! And what have you got those scales for?