No More Learning

If it be really so, why! all is for the
best. Your ministers, then, are your victims, whom you nourish and feed
up expressly in the Pnyx, so that, the day your dinner is ready, you may
immolate the fattest and eat him.

DEMOS. Look, see how I play with them, while all the time they think
themselves such adepts at cheating me. I have my eye on them when they
thieve, but I do not appear to be seeing them; then I thrust a judgment
down their throat as it were a feather, and force them to vomit up all
they have robbed from me.

CLEON. Oh! the rascal!

SAUSAGE-SELLER. Oh! the scoundrel!

CLEON. Demos, all is ready these three hours; I await your orders and I
burn with desire to load you with benefits.

SAUSAGE-SELLER.
And I ten, twelve, a thousand hours, a long, long while,
an infinitely long while.

DEMOS. As for me, 'tis thirty thousand hours that I have been impatient;
very long, infinitely long that I have cursed you.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. Do you know what you had best do?

DEMOS. If I do not, tell me.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. Declare the lists open[126] and we will contend abreast
to determine who shall treat you the best.

DEMOS. Splendid! Draw back in line! [126]

CLEON. I am ready.

DEMOS. Off you go!