“Let us be drinking, then,” quoth Megalonymus, “for I am come bringing you this senile flagon, green cheese, windfallen olives—I keep them under wormscriven sealsSince in worm-eaten wood the “galleries” are never identical in pattern, sections of it were very suitable for use as seals; but in the day of Lexiphanes only an antiquarian is likely to have possessed one. —and other olives, soused, and these earthen cups of cockle-shell, stanchly bottomed, for us to drink out of, and a cake of chitterlings braided like a topknot. My lad, pour in more of the water for me, that I may not begin to have a head, and then call your keeper to come for you. You know that I have my pains and keep my head invested.
And now that we have drunk, we shall gossip according to our wont, for in good sooth it is not inopportune to prate when we are in our cups.” “T approve this,” said I, “and why not, for we are the sheer quintessence of Atticism.” ‘ Very true,” quoth Callicles, “for quizzing each other incessantly is a whet to loquacity.” “As to me,” said Eudemus, “since it is brumal I had liefer fence myself with stiffer drink. I am starved with cold, and when I am warmed I would fain hear these handiwiseCf. Dancing, 69 (p. 272), and the note there. folk, the flute-player and the harper.”
