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Lexiphanes ‘Then to dinner, quoth Callicles, ‘then to our post-prandial deambulation in the Lyceum; but now ’tis time for our parasolar unction, ere we bask and bathe and take our nuncheon; go we our way. Now, boy, strigil and mat, towels and soap; transport me them bathwards, and see to the bath-penny; you will find st a-ground by the chest. And thou, Lexiphanes, comest thou, or tarriest here?? °Tis a thousand years, quoth I, ‘till I bathe; for I am in no comfort, with sore posteriors from my mulesaddle. Trod the mule-man as on eggs, yet kept his beast a-moving. And when I got to the farm, still no peace for the wicked. I found the hinds shrilling the harvest-song, and there were persons burying my father, I think it was. I just gave them a hand with the grave and things, and then I left them; it was so cold, and I had prickly heat; one does, you know, in a hard frost. So I went round the plough-lands; and there I found garlic growing, delved radishes, culled chervil and all herbs, bought parched barley, and (for not yet had the meadows reached the redolency that tempts the ten toes)—so to mule-back again; whence this tenderness behind. And now I walk with pain, and the sweat runs down; my bones languish, and yearn for the longest of water-swims; tts ever my joy to wash me after toil.