SAUSAGE-SELLER. I have many another trick in my sack, memories of my childhood's days. I used to linger around the cooks and say to them, "Look, friends, don't you see a swallow? 'tis the herald of springtime." And while they stood, their noses in the air, I made off with a piece of meat.
CHORUS. Oh! most clever man! How well thought out! You did as the eaters of artichokes, you gathered them before the return of the swallows.[54]
SAUSAGE-SELLER. They could make nothing of it; or, if they suspected a trick, I hid the meat in my breeches and denied the thing by all the gods; so that an orator, seeing me at the game, cried, "This child will get on; he has the mettle that makes a statesman."
CHORUS. He argued rightly; to steal, perjure yourself and make a receiver of your rump[55] are three essentials for climbing high.
CLEON. I will stop your insolence, or rather the insolence of both of you. I will throw myself upon you like a terrible hurricane ravaging both land and sea at the will of its fury.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Then I will gather up my sausages and entrust myself to the kindly waves of fortune so as to make you all the more enraged.
DEMOSTHENES. And I will watch in the bilges in case the boat should make water.
CLEON. No, by Demeter! I swear, 'twill not be with impunity that you have thieved so many talents from the Athenians.[56]
CHORUS (to the Sausage-seller). Oh! oh! reef your sail a bit! Here is
Boreas blowing calumniously.
CLEON. I know that you got ten talents out of Potidaea.[57]