At the same time, however, the plaguy scoundrel devised a trick which was really clever and not what one would expect of your ordinary swindler. In opening and reading the forwarded scrolls, if he found anything dangerous and venturesome in the questions, he would keep them himself and not send them back, in order to hold the senders in subjection and all but in slavery because of their fear, since they remembered what it was that they had asked. You understand what questions are likely to be put by men who are rich and very powerful. So he used to derive much gain from those men, who knew that he had them in his net.