To betray a secret inadvertently. I cannot tell what is the origin of this phrase. Can it be that it alludes to the practice of selling cats for hares? A fraudulent vendor, while pressing a customer "to buy a cat in a bag," (see p. [61],) might in an unguarded moment let him see enough to detect the imposition.
When rogues fall out honest men come by their own.
They peach upon each other. "Thieves quarrel, and thefts are discovered" (Spanish).[685] "Gossips fall out, and tell each other truths" (Spanish).[686] "When the cook and the butler fall out we shall know what is become of the butter" (Dutch).
Tell your secret to your servant, and you make him your master.
Juvenal notes the policy of the Greek adventurers in Rome to worm out the secrets of the house, and so make themselves feared. "To whom you tell your secret you surrender your freedom" (Spanish).[687] "Tell your friend your secret, and he will set his foot on your throat" (Spanish).[688]
Walls have ears.
"Hills see, walls hear" (Spanish).[689] "The forest has ears, the field has eyes" (German).[690]
"What is in the heart of the sober man is on the tongue of the drunken man" (Latin).[691] "In wine is truth" (Latin).[692] "Wine wears no breeches" (Spanish).[693]
When wine sinks, words swim.[694]
When the wine is in the wit is out.