SYR. Well-- are you aware of what I tell you? To slight money on some occasions is sometimes the surest gain. What! --were you afraid, you greatest simpleton alive, if you had parted with ever so little[38] of your right, and had humored the young man, that he would not repay you with interest? SAN. I do not pay ready money for hope. SYR. {Then} you’ll never make a fortune. Get out with you, Sannio; you don’t know how to take in mankind. SAN. I believe that to be the better {plan}-- but I was never so cunning as not, whenever I was able to get it, to prefer getting ready money. SYR. Come, come, I know your spirit; as if twenty minæ were any thing at all to you in comparison to obliging him; besides, they say that you are setting out for Cyprus---- SAN. (_aside._) Hah! SYR. That you have been buying up many things to take thither; {and} that the vessel is hired. This I know, your mind is in suspense; however, when you return thence, I hope you’ll settle the matter. SAN. Not a foot {do I stir}: Heavens! I’m undone! (_Aside._) It was upon this hope they devised their project. SYR. (_aside._) He is alarmed. I’ve brought the fellow into a fix. SAN. (_aside._) Oh, what villainy! --Just look at that; how he has nicked me in the very joint.[39] Several women have been purchased, and other things as well, for me to take to Cyprus.[40] If I don’t get there to the fair, my loss will be very great. Then if I postpone this {business}, and settle it when I come back from there, it will be of no use; the matter will be quite forgotten. “Come at last?” {they’ll say}. “Why did you delay it? Where have you been?” So that I had better lose it altogether than either stay here so long, or be suing for it then. SYR. Have you by this reckoned[41] up what you calculate will be your profits? SAN. Is this honorable of him? Ought Æschinus to attempt this? Ought he to endeavor to take her away from me by downright violence? SYR. (_aside._) He gives ground. (_To SANNIO._) I have this one {proposal to make}; see if you fully approve of it. Rather than you should run the risk, Sannio, of getting or losing the whole, halve it. He will manage to scrape together ten minæ[42] from some quarter or other. SAN. Ah me! unfortunate wretch, I am now in danger of even losing part of the principal. Has he no shame? He has loosened all my teeth; my head, too, is full of bumps with his cuffs; and would he defraud me as well? I shall go nowhere. SYR. Just as you please. Have you any thing more to say before I go? SAN. Why yes, Syrus, i’ faith, I have this to request. Whatever the matters that are past, rather than go to law, let what is my own be returned me; at least, Syrus, the sum she cost me. I know that you have not hitherto made trial of my friendship; you will have no occasion to say that I am unmindful or ungrateful. SYR. I’ll do the best I can. But I see Ctesipho; he’s in high spirits about his mistress. SAN. What about what I was asking you?