Do you want me, Menippus?

The very man I am looking for.

How goes it in Athens?

There are a great many young men there professing philosophy; and to judge from their dress and their walk, they should be perfect in it.

I have seen many such.

For that matter, I suppose you saw Aristippus arrive, reeking with scent; and Plato, the polished flatterer from Sicilian courts?

And what do they think about me in Athens?

Ah, you are fortunate in that respect. You pass for a most remarkable man, omniscient in fact. And all the time— if the truth must out—you know absolutely nothing.

I told them that myself: but they would have it that that was my irony.