As soon as the man stopped reading, all eyes were turned on Zeno and Diphilus, who were pale with apprehension, and confirmed by their embarrassment the insinuations of Hetoemocles. Aristaenetus was uneasy and disturbed, but urged us to drink, and tried to smooth the matter over with an attempt at a smile; he told the man he would see to it, and dismissed him. Zeno disappeared shortly after; his attendant had signed to him, as from his father, to retire. Cleodemus had been on the look-out for an opportunity; he was spoiling for a fight with the Stoics, and chafing over the difficulty of starting the subject; but the letter had struck the right key, and off he went. 'Now we see the productions of your fine Chrysippus, your glorious Zeno, your Cleanthes--a few poor catch-words, some fruitless posers, a philosophic exterior, and a large supply of--Hetoemocleses. What ripe wisdom does this letter reveal, with its conclusion that Aristaenetus is an Oeneus, and Hetoemocles an Artemis! How auspicious, how suitable to the occasion, its tone!' 'To be sure,' chimed in Hermon, his left-hand neighbour; 'he had no doubt heard that Aristaenetus had bespoken a wild boar, and thought the introduction of the one at Calydon appropriate. Aristaenetus, I adjure you by the domestic altar, let him taste the victim, or we shall have the old man starving, and withering away like his Meleager. Though indeed it would not be so very hard on him; such a fate is one of Chrysippus's _things indifferent_.' Here Zenothemis woke up and thundered out: 'Chrysippus? you name that name? because a pretender like Hetoemocles comes short of his profession, you argue from him to the real sages, to Cleanthes and Zeno? And who are the men, pray, who hold such language? Why, Hermon, who shore the curls, the solid golden curls, of the Dioscuri, and who will yet receive his barber's fee from the executioner. And Cleodemus, who was caught in adultery with his pupil Sostratus's wife, and paid the shameful penalty. Silence would better become the owners of such consciences.' 'Who trades in his own wife's favours?' retorted Cleodemus; 'I do not do that, and I do not undertake to keep my foreign pupil's purse and then swear by Polias the deposit was never made; I do not lend money at fifty per cent, and I do not hale my pupils into court if fees are not paid to the day.' 'You will hardly deny, though,' said Zenothemis, 'that you supplied Crito with the poison for his father.'