For that they felt no shame at being proved wrong by me at once, in fact, when I turn out not to be a clever speaker in any way at all: this seemed to me the most shameless thing about them. Unless perhaps these men call the man who speaks the truth "clever at speaking."

The sentence is long and carefully built, which is part of the joke: a man claiming to be no speaker is speaking very well. Then comes the twist. If deinos means "able to say what is true," Socrates will accept the charge. He takes the accusers' word and gives it a new meaning, the move he makes all through the dialogues. Ergōi, "in fact, by the deed," sets up the old Greek pair of word and deed, logos and ergon. They have the words; the deed of his speaking will refute them.