DEM. What’s to be done, then? PHOR. If you will let me have her for a wife, as you promised, I’ll take her; but if you prefer that she should stay with you, the portion must stay with me, Demipho. For it isn’t fair that I should be misled for you, as it was for your own sakes that I broke off with the other woman, who was to have brought me a portion just as large. DEM. Away with you to utter perdition, with this swaggering, you vagabond. What, then, do you fancy we don’t know you, or your doings? PHOR. You are provoking me. DEM. Would you have married her, if she had been given to you? PHOR. Try the experiment. DEM. That my son might cohabit with her at your house, that was your design. PHOR. Pray, what is that you say? DEM. Then do you give me my money? PHOR. Nay, but do you give me my wife? DEM. Come before a magistrate. (_Going to seize hold of him._) PHOR. Why, really, if you persist in being troublesome---- DEM. What will you do? PHOR. What, I? You fancy, perhaps, just now, that I am the protector of the portionless; for the well portioned,[86] I’m in the habit {of being so} as well. CHREM. What’s that to us? PHOR. (_with a careless air._) Nothing at all. I know a certain lady here (_pointing at CHREMES’S house_) whose husband had---- CHREM. (_starting._) Ha! DEM. What’s the matter? PHOR. Another {wife} at Lemnos-- CHREM. (_aside._) I’m ruined! PHOR. By whom he had a daughter; and her he is secretly bringing up. CHREM. (_aside._) I’m {dead and} buried! PHOR. This I shall assuredly now inform her of. (_Walks toward the house._) CHREM. (_running and catching hold of him._) I beg of you, don’t do so. PHOR. (_with a careless air._) Oh, were you the person? DEM. What a jest he’s making {of us}. CHREM. (_to PHORMIO._) We’ll let you off. PHOR. Nonsense. CHREM. What would you have? We’ll forgive you the money you’ve got. PHOR. I hear you. Why the plague, then, do you {two} trifle with me in this way, you silly men, with your childish speeches-- “I won’t, {and} I will; I will, {and} I won’t,” over again: “keep it, give it me back; what has been said, is unsaid; what had been just a bargain, is {now} no bargain.” CHREM. (_aside, to DEMIPHO._) In what manner, or from whom has he come to know of this? DEM. (_aside._) I don’t know; but that I’ve told it to no one, I know for certain. CHREM. (_aside._) So may the Gods bless me, ’tis as good as a miracle. PHOR. (_aside, to himself._) I’ve graveled them.