[93]
But the most agreeable of all jests are those which
are good humoured and easily digested. Take
another example from Afer. Noting that an ungrateful client avoided him in the forum, he sent his
servant1 to him to say, “I hope you are obliged to
me for not having seen you.” Again when his
[p. 491]
steward, being unable to account for certain sums
of money, kept saying, “I have not eaten it: I
live on bread and water,” he replied, “Master
sparrow, pay what you owe.” Such jests the Greeks
style ὑπὸ τὸ ἦθος2 or adapted to character.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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