Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/164

148. Keep quiet; and if you be puzzled in any one of your conceptions, leave it and go; and then set your mind in motion again, and lock it up.

. (in great glee). O dearest little Socrates!

. What, old man?

. I have got a device for cheating them of the interest.

. Exhibit it.

. Now tell me this, pray; if I were to purchase a Thessalian witch, and draw down the moon by night, and then shut it up, as if it were a mirror, in a round crest-case, and then carefully keep it—

. What good, pray, would this do you?

. What? If the moon were to rise no longer any where, I should not pay the interest.

. Why so, pray?

. Because the money is lent out by the month.

. Capital! But I will again propose to you another clever question. If a suit of five talents should be entered against you, tell me how you would obliterate it.

. How? how? I do not know; but I must seek.

. Do not then always revolve your thoughts about yourself; but slack away your mind into the air, like a cock-chafer tied with a thread by the foot.

. I have found a very clever method of getting rid of my suit, so that you yourself would acknowledge it.

. Of what description?

. Have you ever seen this stone in the chemists' shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they kindle fire?

. Do you mean the burning-glass?