Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/64

54 Merc. Take your habit off, to begin with, if you please—and now all that you have there,—great Jupiter! what a lot of humbug he was bringing with him—and ignorance, and disputatiousness, and vainglory, and useless questions, and prickly arguments, and involved statements,—ay, and wasted ingenuity, and solemn trifling, and quips and quirks of all kinds! Yes—by Jove! and there are gold pieces there, and impudence and luxury and debauchery—oh! I see them all, though you are trying to hide them! And your lies, and pomposity, and thinking yourself better than everybody else—away with all that, I say! Why, if you bring all that aboard, a fifty-oared galley wouldn't hold you!

Philosopher. Well, I'll leave it all behind then, if I must.

Men. But make him take his beard off too, Master Mercury; it's heavy and bushy, as you see; there's five pound weight of hair there, at the very least.

Merc. You're right. Take it off, sir!

Phil. But who is there who can shave me?

Merc. Menippus there will chop it off with the boat-hatchet—he can have the gunwale for a chopping-block.

Men. Nay, Mercury, lend us a saw—it will be more fun.

Merc. Oh, the hatchet will do! So—that's well; now you've got rid of your goatishness, you look something more like a man.

Men. Shall I chop a bit off his eyebrows as well?

Merc. By all means; he has stuck them up on his