ure there are plenty of people here who will take
the greatest pride in making you their friend.

Accordingly, they sought out Archedemus, (2) a practical man with a
clever tongue in his head (3) but poor; the fact being, he was not the
sort to make gain by hook or by crook, but a lover of honesty and of
too good a nature himself to make his living as a pettifogger. (4) Crito
would then take the opportunity of times of harvesting and put aside
small presents for Achedemus of corn and oil, or wine, or wool, or any
other of the farm produce forming the staple commodities of life, or he
would invite him to a sacrificial feast, and otherwise pay him marked
attention. Archedemus, feeling that he had in Crito's house a harbour
of refuge, could not make too much of his patron, and ere long he
had hunted up a long list of iniquities which could be lodged against
Crito's pettifogging persecutors themselves, and not only their numerous
crimes but their numerous enemies; and presently he prosecuted one of
them in a public suit, where sentence would be given against him "what
to suffer or what to pay." (5) The accused, conscious as he was of
many rascally deeds, did all he could to be quit of Archedemus, but
Archedemus was not to be got rid of. He held on until he had made the
informer not only loose his hold of Crito but pay himself a sum of
money; and now that Archedemus had achieved this and other similar
victories, it is easy to guess what followed. (6) It was just as when
some shepherd has got a very good dog, all the other shepherds wish
to lodge their flocks in his neighbourhood that they too may reap the
benefit of him. So a number of Crito's friends came begging him to allow
Archedemus to be their guardian also, and Archedemus was overjoyed to
do something to gratify Crito, and so it came about that not only Crito
abode in peace, but his friends likewise. If any of those people with
whom Archedemus was not on the best of terms were disposed to throw
it in his teeth that he accepted his patron's benefits and paid in
flatteries, he had a ready retort: "Answer me this question--which is
the more scandalous, to accept kindnesses from honest folk and to repay
them, with the result that I make such people my friends but quarrel
with knaves, or to make enemies of honourable gentlemen (7) by attempts
to do them wrong, with the off-chance indeed of winning the friendship
of some scamps in return for my co-operation, but the certaint