PENURIOUSNESS IS unseasonable
carefulness of profit and loss. The penurious man will come before the
month is finished1 and demand a half-penny interest instead
of waiting for his penny at the end of the month. When he is out dining
he will watch how much each drinks and will pour a smaller libation to
Artemis than any other member of the company. If a person gets a thing
cheap for him and charges it to him he will declare it is too much. much.
When a servant breaks a jar or a plate he keeps the value of it out of
his rations. If his wife lets fall a farthing he is sure to move the furniture
and the couches and the wardrobes and to search through all the curtains.
When he has anything for sale he will sell at such a price that the buyer
cannot possibly make any profit out of it. He will not allow anyone to
take a fig from his garden, or to walk through his estate, or to pick
up a date or an olive that has fallen down. He will inspect his boundary
stones every day to see if they are untouched. He will enforce the right
of distraining and always charges compound interest. When he gives a dinner
to his townsmen the pieces of meat he placed before them are always very
small. If he goes himself to buy provisions he comes back without buying
anything. He strictly charges his wife not to lend salt or lamp-wick or
cummin or marjoram or barley or garlands or cakes for sacrifice, telling
her that these little things come to a big sum at the end of a year. In
general one usually perceives that the money chests of the penurious are
mouldy and the keys rusty, and that they wear cloaks scarce reaching to
the thigh, that they anoint themselves from the smallest of oilflasks
that their hair is always cropped short that they only put on shoes at
midday, and that they are always at teh fuller to see that their cloaks
have plenty of earth that they may not be quickly soiled.
1. Interest at Athens was paid at the end of each month.
PENURIOUSNESS IS unseasonable
carefulness of profit and loss. The penurious man will come before the
month is finished1 and demand a half-penny interest instead
of waiting for his penny at the end of the month. When he is out dining
he will watch how much each drinks and will pour a smaller libation to
Artemis than any other member of the company. If a person gets a thing
cheap for him and charges it to him he will declare it is too much. much.
When a servant breaks a jar or a plate he keeps the value of it out of
his rations. If his wife lets fall a farthing he is sure to move the furniture
and the couches and the wardrobes and to search through all the curtains.
When he has anything for sale he will sell at such a price that the buyer
cannot possibly make any profit out of it. He will not allow anyone to
take a fig from his garden, or to walk through his estate, or to pick
up a date or an olive that has fallen down. He will inspect his boundary
stones every day to see if they are untouched. He will enforce the right
of distraining and always charges compound interest. When he gives a dinner
to his townsmen the pieces of meat he placed before them are always very
small. If he goes himself to buy provisions he comes back without buying
anything. He strictly charges his wife not to lend salt or lamp-wick or
cummin or marjoram or barley or garlands or cakes for sacrifice, telling
her that these little things come to a big sum at the end of a year. In
general one usually perceives that the money chests of the penurious are
mouldy and the keys rusty, and that they wear cloaks scarce reaching to
the thigh, that they anoint themselves from the smallest of oilflasks
that their hair is always cropped short that they only put on shoes at
midday, and that they are always at teh fuller to see that their cloaks
have plenty of earth that they may not be quickly soiled.
