unsalved. 8 With the coast of Italy on his right hand, with the Aphrodite's steering oars firm in his grip, with the poop deck rolling gently beneath his bare feet, Menedemos felt at home once more. 'By the gods, it's good to get back to sea.' 'I suppose so.' Sostratos didn't sound convinced. 'You've been sour ever since we left Taras yesterday morning.' Menedemos eyed his cousin. 'You're pining for that redhead girl. Foolish to get yourself in such an uproar over a slave.' 'You're a fine one to speak of foolishness,' Sostratos snapped: that had got his notice. 'How's your ankle feeling these days?' 'It's doing pretty well,' Menedemos answered blithely. 'It hardly bothers me unless I turn just the wrong way.' That exaggerated his improvement, but not by a great deal. He got in a jab of his own: 'At least I never imagined I was in love with Phyllis.' 'I wasn't in love with Maibia,' Sostratos said. 'She hoped I would be, but I wasn't. I'm not so silly as that.' 'Well, what is your trouble, then? Was she that good in bed?' 'Never a dull moment - I will say that,' his cousin replied. 'I do feel bad about leaving her back there to take on all comers again.' 'All comers, indeed,' Menedemos said, and Sostratos gave him a dirty look. Trying to get Sostratos to show a little common sense, Menedemos went on, 'Do you think she thinks you were all that wonderful?' His cousin turned red. Stammering a little, he answered, 'I - I like to think so, anyhow.' 'Of course you do. But are you thinking straight? To a girl in a brothel, a man's just another man, a prick's just another prick.' Menedemos leered at Sostratos. 'Or are you another Ariphrades? He found a way to make the girls in the brothels happy with him.' Grinning, he quoted from Aristophanes' Wasps: ' 'And so Ariphrades is the very cleverest fellow. His father swore he learned from no one else, But taught himself by his own wise nature To work his tongue in the whorehouse, going in time after time.' ' Sostratos looked revolted. 'I wouldn't do anything like that,' he said. 'I did hope not, best one,' Menedemos said. 'But if this girl was really mooning over you, I wondered if you'd given her some strange sort of reason.' He quoted Aristophanes again, this time from the Knights:
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