Page:Plautus and Terence.djvu/151

Rh her go." Geta is conscious that he has no very satisfactory account to render of his stewardship, and has prophetic visions of the stocks and the mill-prison. The son has made up his mind, by Geta's advice, to meet his father with something very much like bluster; but the moment the old gentleman makes his actual appearance, his courage evaporates, and he makes off, leaving his cousin Phædria, with Geta's assistance, to make such apologies on his behalf as they can.

The father's indignation, though it does not spare either Geta or Antipho, is chiefly directed against the parasite Phormio,—this disreputable Mentor of youth, who has trumped up such an imposture. But Phormio is equal to the occasion; indeed, his nature is rather to rejoice in these kind of encounters with his angry dupes, in which he feels confident his natural audacity and shrewdness will carry him through. "It is a tough morsel," he says—drawing his metaphor from his familiar sphere of the dinner-table—"but I'll make a shift to bolt it." Geta, who regards him with a kind of respectful envy, as a knave of higher mark than himself, wonders how, considering all the more than doubtful transactions he has been engaged in, he has hitherto escaped the meshes of the law.

Phormio. Because, my friend, no fowler spreads his net

For hawk or kite, or such-like birds of prey;

'Tis for the innocent flock, who do no harm;

They are fat morsels, full of juice and flavour,

Well worth the catching. Men who've aught to lose,

Such are in danger from the law; for me—

They know I've nothing. "Nay, but then," you'll say,

"They'll clap you up in jail." Oh! will they?Ah!