Dikaiopolis returns to the stage and sets up a "private" market where he and the enemies of Athens can trade peacefully. Various minor characters come and go in farcical circumstances. A starving Megarian trades his famished daughters, disguised as piglets, for garlic and salt (products in which Megara had abounded in pre-war days) and then an informer or sycophant tries to confiscate the piglets as enemy contraband before he is driven off by Dikaiopolis. (Note that piglets meant also female genitals). Next a Boeotian arrives with birds and eels for sale. Dikaiopolis has nothing to trade that the Boeotian could want but he cleverly manages to interest him in a commodity that is rare in Boeotia – an Athenian "sycophant". Another sycophant happens to arrive at that very moment and he tries to confiscate the birds and eels but instead he is packed in straw like a piece of pottery and carried off back home by the Boeotian.