“Um,” said Brutha. “Are you a slave?”
“Yes, master.”
“That must be terrible.”
The man leaned on his broom. “You're right. It's terrible. Really terrible. D'you know, I only get one day off a week?”
Brutha, who had never heard the words “day off” before, and who was in any case unfamiliar with the concept, nodded uncertainly.
“Why don't you run away?” he said.
“Oh, done that,” said the slave. “Ran away to Tsort once. Didn't like it much. Came back. Run away for a fortnight in Djelibeybi every winter, though.”
“Do you get brought back?” said Brutha.
“Huh!” said the slave. “No, I don't. Miserable skinflint, Aristocrates. I have to come back by myself. Hitching lifts on ships, that kind of thing.”
“You come back?”
“Yeah. Abroad's all right to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. Anyway, I've only got another four years as a slave and then I'm free. You get the vote when you're free. And you get to keep slaves.” His face glazed with the effort of recollection as he ticked off points on his fingers. “Slaves get three meals a day, at least one with meat. And one free day a week. And two weeks being-allowed-to-run?away every year. And I don't do ovens or heavy lifting, and worldly-wise repartee only by arrangement.”
“Yes, but you're not free, ” said Brutha, intrigued despite himself.
“What's the difference?”
“Er . . . you don't get any days off.” Brutha scratched his head. “And one less meal.”
“Really? I think I'll give freedom a miss then, thanks.”
“Er . . . have you seen a tortoise anywhere around here?” said Brutha.
“No. And I cleaned under the bed.”
“Have you seen one anywhere else today?”
"You want one? There's good eating on a-
"No. No. It's all right-
“Brutha! ”
hilosophy was a mixture of three famous schools-the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Epicureansand summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, “You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink. Mine's a double, if you're buying. Thank you. And a packet of nuts. Her left bosom is nearly uncovered, eh? Two more packets, then!”
Many people have quoted from his famous Meditations:
“It's a rum old world all right. But you've got to laugh, haven't you? Nil Illegitimo Carborundum is what I say. The experts don't know everything. Still, where would we be if we were all the same?”
Om crawled closer to the voice, bringing himself around the corner of the wall so that he could see into a small courtyard.
There was a very large barrel against the far wall. Various debris around it-broken wine amphorae, gnawed bones, and a couple of lean-to shacks made out of rough boards?suggested that it was someone's home. And this impression was given some weight by the sign chalked on a board and stuck to the wall over the barrel.
It read:
DIDACTYLOS and Nephew
Practical Philosophers
No Proposition Too Large