Giton, who had been standing at my feet, and who had for some time been holding in his laughter, burst into an uproarious guffaw, at this last figure of speech, and when Ascyltos’ adversary heard it, he turned his abuse upon the boy. “What’s so funny, you curly-headed onion,” he bellowed, “are the Saturnalia here, I’d like to know? Is it December now?

“When did you pay your twentieth? What’s this to you, you gallows-bird, you crow’s meat? I’ll call the anger of Jupiter down on you and that master of yours, who don’t keep you in better order. If I didn’t respect my fellow-freedmen, I’d give you what is coming to you right here on the spot, as I hope to get my belly full of bread, I would. We’ll get along well enough, but those that can’t control you are fools; like master like man’s a true saying. I can hardly hold myself in and I’m not hot-headed by nature, but once let me get a start and I don’t care two cents for my own mother. All right, I’ll catch you in the street, you rat, you toadstool. May I never grow an inch up or down if I don’t push your master into a dunghill, and I’ll give you the same medicine, I will, by Hercules, I will, no matter if you call down Olympian Jupiter himself! I’ll take care of your eight inch ringlets and your two cent master into the bargain. I’ll have my teeth into you, either you’ll cut out the laughing, or I don’t know myself. Yes, even if you had a golden beard. I’ll bring the wrath of Minerva down on you and on the fellow that first made a come-here out of you. No, I never learned geometry or criticism or other foolishness like that, but I know my capital letters and I can divide any figure by a hundred, be it in asses, pounds or sesterces. Let’s have a show-down, you and I will make a little bet, here’s my coin; you’ll soon find out that your father’s money was wasted on your education, even if you do know a little rhetoric. How’s this--what part of us am I? I come far, I come wide, now guess me! I’ll give you another. What part of us runs but never moves from its place? What part of us grows but always grows less? But you scurry around and are as flustered and fidgeted as a mouse in a piss-pot. Shut up and don’t annoy your betters, who don’t even know that you’ve been born. Don’t think that I’m impressed by those boxwood armlets that you did your mistress out of. Occupo will back me! Let’s go into the forum and borrow money, then you’ll see whether this iron ring means credit! Bah! A draggled fox is a fine sight, ain’t it’? I hope I never get rich and die decently so that the people will swear by my death, if I don’t hound you everywhere with my toga turned inside out. And the fellow that taught you such manners did a good job too, a chattering ape, all right, no schoolmaster. We were better taught. ‘Is everything in its place?’ the master would ask; go straight home and don’t stop and stare at everything and don’t be impudent to your elders. Don’t loiter along looking in at the shops. No second raters came out of that school. I’m what you see me and I thank the gods it’s all due to my own cleverness.”