Pshaw! ANTIPHO What am I to do? PHAEDRIA (to GETA.) What is it you say? GETA That I have seen his father, your uncle. ANTIPHO How am I, wretch that I am, now to find a remedy for this sudden misfortune? But if it should be my fortune, Phanium, to be torn away from you, life would cease to be desirable. GETA Therefore, Antipho, since matters are thus, the more need have you to be on your guard; fortune helps the brave. ANTIPHO I am not myself. GETA But just now it is especially necessary you should be so, Antipho; for if your father perceives that you are alarmed, he will think that you have been guilty of some fault. PHAEDRIA That’s true. ANTIPHO I can not change. GETA What would you do, if now something else still more difficult had to be done by you? ANTIPHO As I am not equal to this, I should be still less so to the other. GETA This is doing nothing at all, Phaedria, let’s be gone; why do we waste our time here to no purpose. I shall be off. PHAEDRIA And I too. (They move as if going.) ANTIPHO Pray, now, if I assume an air, will that do? (He endeavors to assume another air.) GETA You are trifling. ANTIPHO Look at my countenance—there’s for you. (Assuming a different air.) Will that do? GETA No. ANTIPHO Well, will this? (Assuming another air.) GETA Pretty well. ANTIPHO Well then, this? (Assuming a still bolder air.) GETA That’s just the thing. There now, keep to that, and answer him word for word, like for like; don’t let him, in his anger, disconcert you with his blustering words. ANTIPHO I understand. GETA Say that you were forced against your will by law, by sentence of the court; do you take me? (Looking earnestly in one direction.) But who is the old man that I see at the end of the street? ANTIPHO ’Tis he himself. I can not stand it. (Going.) GETA Oh! What are you about? Whither are you going, Antipho? Stop, I tell you. ANTIPHO I know my own self and my offense; to your management I trust Phanium and my own existence. (Exit hastily.)