The Scythian or Consul (80)

Now here let me ask you if, leaving aside his talk, you would care to be like your teacher. Would you care to be so irritable, so mean, so quarrelsome, yes, and so fond of pleasure, even if people don’t think it? Why don’t you speak, Hermotimus? Shall I tell you what I heard the other day from a very old man who spoke in defence of some philosophy or other? Quite a number of young men keep him company to learn his wisdom, and he was in a temper as he demanded payment from one of his pupils, saying that it was overdue and that the day had gone by: the debt ought to have been paid sixteen days before on the last day of the month, according to the agreement.