Trial in the Court of Vowels (7-8)

I was once staying at Cybelus, a pleasant little town, said to be an Athenian colony; my travelling companion was the excellent Rho, best of neighbours. My host was a writer of comedies, called Lysimachus; he seems to have been a Boeotian by descent, though he represented himself as coming from the interior of Attica. It was while with him that I first detected Tau’s depredations. For some earlier occasional attempts (as when he took to τετταράκοντα for τεσσαράκοντα, τήμερον for σήμερον, with little pilferings of that sort) I had explained as a trick and peculiarity of pronunciation; I had tolerated the sound without letting it annoy me seriously.

But impunity emboldened him; κασσίτερος became καττίτερος, κάσσυμα and πίσσα shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted βασίλισσα. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born and bred[*]; at such a time