“Nay, you would surely cease to think that folly which could make a fool wise.”
“A fool wise! And who but a fool would think that possible?”
“I grant it were difficult: but may it not also sometimes be difficult to discover who is a fool, and who not? Among my scholars there, some doubtless may be fools, and some possibly may not be fools.”
“No,” interrupted the cynic; “or they would not be your scholars.”
“Ah! I being a fool myself. Well reminded! I had forgot that was one of our premises. But then, I being a fool, and all my scholars being fools, I do not see how much harm can be done, either by my talking folly, or their hearkening to it.”
“No, if wise men were not forced to hearken also. I tell you that our streets and our porticoes buzz with your name and your nonsense. Keep all the fools of Athens in your gardens, and lock the gates, and you may preach folly as long and as loud as you please.”
“I have but one objection to this; namely, that my gardens would not hold all the fools of Athens. Suppose, therefore, the wise men, being a smaller body, were shut into a garden, and the city and the rest of Attica left for the fools?”
“I told you,” cried the cynic, in a voice of anger, “that I hate useless words.”
“Nay, friend, why then walk a mile to speak advice to me? No words so useless as those thrown at a fool.”
“Very true, very true;” and so saying, the stranger turned his back, and quitted the temple.