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Rh takes into his counsels his new fellow-servant, Palestrio, and confides to him his discovery. Palestrio tries to persuade him that his eyes have deceived him, but finding him obstinately convinced of their accuracy, invents a story of a twin-sister, who by a curious coincidence has just come to Ephesus and taken the house next door, where she allows a lover of her own to visit her. The chief fun of the piece, which is somewhat of a childish character, consists in the ingenuity with which Philocomasium, with the aid of Palestrio, contrives by a change of costume to play the double part of herself and the imaginary twin-sister; much to the bewilderment of the Captain's watchful and suspicious retainer, who is ignorant of the existence of the secret passage by which at her pleasure she flits from house to house.

The catastrophe is brought about by the absorbing vanity of the military hero. He is persuaded by the ready Palestrio that a lady in the neighbourhood, of great charms and accomplishments, has fallen violently in love with him, and that if only out of charity it behoves him to have compassion on her. She has a jealous husband, and dare not invite him to her house, but asks to be allowed to call upon him at his own. In order to have the coast quite clear, he sends off Philocomasium for a while, in charge of the trusty Palestrio, who willingly undertakes to escort her—with her mother and the twin-sister, as he thinks—really with her lover Pleusicles, who, in the guise of a shipowner, carries her off to Athens. The fate of the Captain is that of Falstaff, in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor.' As soon as the love-stricken lady—who is