11
Accordingly I got ready to take myself off, but Eukrates turned round and after a good deal of hesitation said, when he saw me looking very downcast, "Come along, too, Mikyllos, and dine with us. I will tell my son to have his supper with his mother in the nursery so that there may be a place for you." So I went in like a wolf who has almost lost his prey, ashamed that they should think I had driven Eukrates's boy from the table. When it was time to take our places on the couches, they first lifted Thesmopolis and set him up. It was no small job, by Zeus! for five—I think it was five -well-grown young men, and they stuffed cushions in all round him to keep him in position and enable him to hold out a long time. Then, as nobody could endure to sit near him, they took me and deposited me beside him, so that we were neighbors. Thereupon we dined, Pythagoras, and had a bountiful and varied dinner off abundance of silver and gold. There were golden goblets, and the waiters were beautiful boys, and between the courses there were singing-girls and clowns, and on the whole the entertainment was delightful. The only drawback was that Thesmopolis gave me a good deal of trouble by boring me and talking to me about the "higher life," and instructing me that two negatives make an affirmative, and that if it is day it is not night, and sometimes he even proved that I had horns. He strung together a great deal more of such philosophy for me, quite gratuitously, and cut off my mirth, because he would not let me listen to the cither-playing and singing. Such, Cock, was the dinner.
11
Not much fun, Mikyllos, particularly as you were assigned to that silly old man.
