INFORMER No, but I should no longer fear the pirates; I should return with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast.
PISTHETAERUS So it seems, despite all your youthful vigour, you make it your trade to denounce strangers?
INFORMER Well, and why not? I don't know how to dig.
PISTHETAERUS But, by Zeus! there are honest ways of gaining a living at your age without all this infamous trickery.
INFORMER My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis just my words that give you wings.
INFORMER And how can you give a man wings with your words?
PISTHETAERUS 'Tis thus that all first start.
INFORMER All?
PISTHETAERUS Have you not often heard the father say to young men in the barbers' shops, "It's astonishing how Diitrephes' advice has made my son fly to horse-riding."—"Mine," says another, "has flown towards tragic poetry on the wings of his imagination."