_Da._ How's that? _Ge._ Well, I'll tell you if you won't say anything about it. _Da._ O, come off, you dunce, you have just trusted money with me; are you afraid to lend me words? Besides, what good would it do me to give you away? _Ge._ Well, listen then. You know our old man's brother Chremes? _Da._ Well, I should say. _Ge._ And his son Phædria? _Da._ As well as I do you. _Ge._ Both the old men went away, Chremes to Lemnos, and his brother to Cilicia, and left me here to take care of their two sons. My guardian spirit must have had it in for me. At first I began to oppose the boys; but there--my faithfulness to the old men I paid for with my bones. Then I just gave it up and let them do as they pleased. At first, my young master Antipho was all right; but his cousin Phædria lost no time in getting into trouble. He fell in love with a little lute-player--desperately in love. She was a slave, and owned by a most villainous fellow. Phædria had no money to buy her freedom with--his father had looked out for that; so the poor boy could only feast his eyes upon her, tag her around and walk back and forth to school with her. Antipho and I had nothing else to do, so we watched Phædria. Well, one day when we were all sitting in the barber-shop across the street from the little slave-girl's schoolhouse, a fellow came in crying like a baby. When we asked him what the trouble was, he said: "Poverty never seemed to me so dreadful before. Just now I saw a poor girl here in the neighborhood crying over her dead mother. And there wasn't a single soul around, not an acquaintance or a relative or any one at all to help at the funeral, except one little old woman, her nurse. I did feel sorry for the girl. She was a beauty, too." Well, he stirred us all up. Then Antipho speaks up and says: "Let's go and see her; you lead the way." So we went and saw her. She _was_ a beauty. And she wasn't fixed up a bit either: her hair was all hanging loose, she was bare-footed, unkempt, eyes red with weeping, dress travel-stained. So she must have been an all-round beauty, or she couldn't have seemed so then. Phædria says: "She'll do pretty well." But Antipho-- _Da._ O yes, I know, he fell in love with her. _Ge._ But do you know how much? Wait and see how it came out. Next day he went straight to the nurse and begged her to let him see the girl; but the old woman wouldn't allow it. She said he wasn't acting on the square; that the girl was a well-born citizen of Athens, and that if he wanted to marry her he might do so in the legal way. If he had any other object it was no use. Our young man didn't know what to do. He wanted to marry her fast enough, but he was afraid of his absent father. _Da._ Why, wouldn't his father have forgiven him when he came back? _Ge._ What, he allow his son to marry a poor girl that nobody knew anything about? Not much! _Da._ Well, what came next? _Ge._ What