ch they had thought dried up, still fresh and running? They came
dissembling, protesting, expressing deepest sorrow and shame, that when
his lordship sent to them, they should have been so unfortunate as to
want the present means to oblige so honourable a friend. But Timon
begged them not to give such trifles a thought, for he had altogether
forgotten it. And these base fawning lords, though they had denied him
money in his adversity, yet could not refuse their presence at this new
blaze of his returning prosperity. For the swallow follows not summer
more willingly than men of these dispositions follow the good fortunes
of the great, nor more willingly leaves winter than these shrink from
the first appearance of a reverse; such summer birds are men. But now
with music and state the banquet of smoking dishes was served up; and
when the guests had a little done admiring whence the bankrupt Timon
could find means to furnish so costly a feast, some doubting whether
the scene which they saw was real, as scarce trusting their own eyes;
at a signal given, the dishes were uncovered, and Timon's drift
appeared: instead of those varieties and far-fetched dainties which
they expected, that Timon's epicurean table in past times had so
liberally presented, now appeared under the covers of these dishes a
preparation more suitable to Timon's poverty, nothing but a little
smoke and lukewarm water, fit feast for this knot of mouth-friends,
whose professions were indeed smoke, and their hearts lukewarm and
slippery as the water with which Timon welcomed his astonished guests,
bidding them, 'Uncover, dogs, and lap'; and before they could recover
their surprise, sprinkling it in their faces, that they might have
enough, and throwing dishes and all after them, who now ran huddling
out, lords, ladies, with their caps snatched up in haste, a splendid
confusion, Timon pursuing them, still calling them what they were,
'smooth smiling parasites, destroyers under the mask of courtesy,
affable wolves, meek bears, fools of fortune, feast-friends,
time-flies.' They, crowding out to avoid him, left the house more
willingly than they had entered it; some losing their gowns and caps,
and some their jewels in the hurry, all glad to escape out of the
presence of such a mad lord, and from the ridicule of his mock banquet.

This was the last feast which ever Timon made, and in it he took
farewell of Athens and the society of men; for, after that, he betook