Chrysippus Well, but the Man in the Hood is your father. You don’t know the Man in the Hood. Therefore you don’t know your own father. Seventh Dealer Why, no. But if I take his hood off, I shall get at the facts. Now tell me, what is the end of your philosophy? What happens when you reach the goal of virtue? Chrysippus In regard to things external, health, wealth, and the like, I am then all that Nature intended me to be. But there is much previous toil to be undergone. You will first sharpen your eyes on minute manuscripts, amass commentaries, and get your bellyful of outlandish terms. Last but not least, it is forbidden to be wise without repeated doses of hellebore. Seventh Dealer All this is exalted and magnanimous to a degree. But what am I to think when I find that you are also the creed of cent-per-cent, the creed of the usurer? Has be swallowed his hellebore? is be made perfect in virtue? Chrysippus Assuredly. On none but the wise man does usury sit well, Consider. His is the art of putting two and two together, and usury is the art of putting interest together. The two are evidently connected, and one as much as the other is the prerogative of the true believer; who, not content, like common men, with simple interest, will also take interest upon interest. For interest, as you are probably aware, is of two kinds. There is simple interest, and there is its offspring, compound interest. Hear Syllogism on the subject. ‘If I take simple interest, I shall also take compound. But I shall take simple interest: therefore I shall take compound.’