THOSE who are doubtful in their own minds wait for their friends' decision. I have debated this matter already with the winds—for I was afraid to mention it to you, wife—but now I am going to speak out and beg you to decide for the best and advise me. You shall hear how things stand and what it is I want you to settle. As you know, we are very badly off and life is very difficult: the sea is a bad foster-mother. That oared galley you see over there with the large crew of rowers is a Corycian boat and the company on board are pirates. They want me to join them in their criminal trade and they promise heaps on heaps of money. The gold they offer and their fine clothes tempt me sorely, but I could never consent to murder or let blood stain the hands which the sea from my childhood till now has kept clean of all wrong doing. And yet to stay here with poverty as constant companion is a hard lot and scarcely to be borne. Do you weigh the matter and decide. To which¬ever side you incline, wife, that way I will take. Doubts are best cut short by a comrade's advice.