If Demipho is at home. I want to see him, that-- _Dem._ [_stepping up from without_]. Why, we were just coming to see you, Phormio. _Pho._ On the same business, perhaps? _Dem._ Very likely. _Pho._ I supposed so. But why were you coming to me? It's absurd. Were you afraid that I wouldn't do what I had promised? No fear of that. For, however poor I may be, I have always been particularly careful to keep my word. And so I have come to tell you, Demipho, that I am ready; whenever you wish, give me my wife. For I put all my own private considerations aside, as was quite right, when I saw that you wanted this so much. _Dem._ [_who does not know quite what to say_]. But my brother here has asked me not to give her to you. "For," says he, "what a scandal there will be if you do that! At the time when she could have been given to you honorably it was not done; and now it would be a disgrace to cast her off." Almost the same arguments that you yourself urged upon me not long ago. _Pho._ Well, you _have_ got gall! _Dem._ What do you mean? _Pho._ Can't you see? I can't even marry that other girl now; for with what face could I go back to her after I had once thrown her over? _Chr._ [_prompting Demipho, sotto voce_]. "Then I find that Antipho is unwilling to to let his wife go"--tell him that. _Dem._ And then I find that my son objects to letting his wife go. But come right over to the Forum, if you please, Phormio, and sign this money back to me again. _Pho._ How can I, when I have already used it to pay my debts with? _Dem._ Well, what then? _Pho._ [_pompously_]. If you are willing to give me the girl you promised for my wife, I'll marry her: but if you want her to stay with you, why, the dowry stays with me, Demipho. For it isn't right that I should lose this on your account, when it was for the sake of your honor that I broke with the other girl who was offering the same dowry. _Dem._ Go be hanged, with your big talk, you jail-bird! Do you suppose that I don't see through you and your tricks? _Pho._ Look out, I'm getting hot. _Dem._ Do you mean to say you would marry this girl if we gave her to you? _Pho._ Just try me and see. _Dem._ [_with a sneer_]. O yes, your scheme is to have my son live with her at your house. _Pho._ [_indignantly_]. What do you mean? _Dem._ Come, give me that money. _Pho._ Come, give me my wife. _Dem._ [_laying hands on him_]. You come along to court with me. _Pho._ You'd better look out! If you don't stop-- _Dem._ What will you do? _Pho._ I? [_Turning to Chremes_]. Perhaps you think that I take only poor girls under my protection. I'll have you know I sometimes stand as patron to girls with dowries too. _Chr._ [_with a guilty start_]. What's that to us? _Pho._ O nothing. I knew a woman here once whose husband had-- _Chr._ O! _Dem._ What's that? _Pho._ Another wife in Lemnos-- _Chr._ I'm a dead man. _Pho._ By whom he had a daughter; and