ale. Gentlemen,--We are here going to offer
you philosophical systems of all kinds, and of the most varied and
ingenious description. If any gentleman happens to be short of ready
money he can give his security for the amount, and pay next year.

_Mercury (to Jupiter)._--There are a great many come; so we had best
begin at once, and not keep them waiting.

_Jupiter._--Begin the sale, then.

_Mercury._--Whom shall we put up first?

_Jupiter._--This fellow with the long hair--the Ionian. He's rather an
imposing personage.

_Mercury._--You, Pythagoras, step out, and show yourself to the company.

_Jupiter._--Put him up.

_Mercury._--Gentlemen, we here offer you a professor of the very best
and most select description. Who buys? Who wants to be a cut above the
rest of the world? Who wants to understand the harmonies of the universe
and to live two lives?

_Customer (turning the philosopher round and examining him)._--He's not
bad to look at. What does he know best?

_Mercury._--Arithmetic, astronomy, prognostics, geometry, music, and
conjuring. You've a first-rate soothsayer before you.

_Customer._--May one ask him a few questions?

_Mercury._--Certainly--(_aside_), and much good may the answers do you.

_Customer._--What country do you come from?

_Pythagoras._--Samos.

_Customer._--Where were you educated?

_Pythagoras._--In Egypt, among the wise men there.

_Customer._--Suppose I buy you, now, what will you teach me?

_Pythagoras._--I will teach you nothing--only recall things to your
memory.

_Customer._--How will you do that?

_Pythagoras._--First, I will clean out your mind, and wash out all the
rubbish.

_Customer._--Well, suppose that done, how do you proceed to refresh the
memory?

_Pythagoras._--First, by long repose and silence, speaking no word for
five whole years.

_Customer._--Why, look ye, my good fellow, you'd best go teach the dumb
son of Croesus! I want to talk and not be a dummy. Well--but after this
silence, and these five years?

_Pythagoras._--You shall learn music and geometry.

_Customer._--A queer idea, that one must be a fiddler before one can be
a wise man!

_Pythagoras._--Then you shall learn the science of numbers.

_Customer._--Thank you, but I know how to count already.

_Pythagoras._--How do you count?

_Customer._--One, two, three, four----

_Pythagoras._--Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle,
and the great oath by which we swear.