266 PHILEMON.

Guest. “Wake up, I say.. Philolaches’s father has
come back from abroad.”

Cal. “ Bother his father!”

Phil. “For goodness’ sake, wake up! My father .
has come.”

Cal. “Your father has come? Then make him
go away again; what business has he to come both-
ering here?”

Phil. “What can I do? My father will be here
directly and find pretty goings on. It’s a bad busi-
ness. I can’t think what is to be done. It is like
beginning to dig a well when one is dying of thirst.
And see, that fellow there has dropped asleep again.
Wake! Isay. Don’t you know that my father will
be here in a minute?”

Cal. “Your father, do you say? Give me my
shoes and my sword; Ill kill your father.”

Tranio now rose to the occasion: He bade his
master cheer up. He would keep, he said, the old
man from comirig into the house. The guests need
not go; they might continue to enjoy themselves;
only the house must he shut up; there must be no
noise, and if there was a knocking at the door,
there must be no attempt to reply. To make assur-
ance doubly sure, he would take the precaution of
locking the door from the outside. These arrange-
ments had scarcely been made, when the father,
whose name was Theopropides, arrived, followed by
his slaves. Reaching his house, he stood awhile to