Sale of Creeds (12-13)

Now for the Cyrenaic, the crowned and purple-robed.

Attend please, gentlemen all. A most valuable article, this, and calls for a long purse.’ Look at him, A sweet thing in creeds. A creed for a king. Has any gentleman a use for the Lap of Luxury? Who bids?:

Come and tell me what you know. If you are a practical creed, I will have you.

Please not to worry him with questions, sir. He is drunk, and cannot answer; his tongue plays him tricks, as you see.

And who in his senses would buy such an abandoned reprobate? How he smells of scent! And how he slips and staggers about! Well, you must speak for him, Hermes. What can he do? What is his line?

Well, for any gentleman who is not strait-laced, who loves a pretty girl, a bottle, and a jolly companion, he is the very thing. He is also a past master in gastronomy, and a connoisseur in voluptuousness generally. He was educated at Athens, and has served royalty in Sicily[*], where he had a very good character. Here are his principles in a nutshell: Think the worst of things: make the most of things: get all possible pleasure out of things.

You must look for wealthier purchasers. My purse is not equal to such a festive creed.

Zeus, this lot seems likely to remain on our hands.

Put it aside, and up with another. Stay, take the pair from Abdera and Ephesus; the creeds of Smiles and Tears. They shall make one lot.

Come forward, you two. Lot No. 4. A superlative pair. The smartest brace of creeds on our catalogue.

Zeus! What a difference is here! One of them does nothing but laugh, and the other might be at a funeral; he is all tears—You there! what is the joke?

You ask? You and your affairs are all one vast joke.

So! You laugh at us? Our business is a toy?

It is. There is no taking it seriously. All is vanity. Mere interchange of atoms in an infinite void.

Your vanity is infinite, if you like. Stop that laughing, you rascal.—