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42Although the thing that struck me with most astonishment of all was, that you should venture to make mention of inheritances, when you yourself had not received the inheritance of your own father.
XVII. And was it in order to collect all these arguments, O you most senseless of men, that you spent so many days in practising declamation in another man’s villa? Although, indeed, (as your most intimate friends usually say,) you are in the habit of declaiming, not for the purpose of whetting your genius, but of working off the effects of wine. And, indeed, you employ a master to teach you jokes, a man appointed by your own vote and that of your boon companions; a rhetorician, whom you have allowed to say whatever he pleased against you, a thoroughly facetious gentleman; but there are plenty of materials for speaking against you and against your friends. But just see now what a difference there is between you and your grandfather. He used with great deliberation to bring forth arguments advantageous to the cause he was advocating; you pour forth in a hurry the sentiments which you have been taught by another.
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