_Antipho._ Come, give us your news, for goodness' sake, and be quick. _Ge._ All right, I will. _Ant._ Well, out with it, then. _Ge._ Just now at the harbor-- _Ant._ What, my-- _Ge._ That's right. _Ant._ I'm done for! Phædria has not Antipho's fear-sharpened imagination to get Geta's news from these fragmentary statements, and asks the slave to tell him what it is all about. _Geta._ I tell you that I have seen his father, your uncle. _Ant._ [_frantically_]. How shall I meet this sudden disaster? But if it has come to this, Phanium [_his wife_], that I am to be separated from you, then I don't want to live any longer. _Ge._ There, there, Antipho, in such a state of things you ought to be all the more on the watch. Fortune favors the brave, you know. _Ant._ [_with choking voice_]. I'm not myself to-day. _Ge._ But you must be, Antipho; for if your father sees that you are timid and meek about it, he'll think of course that you are in the wrong. _Ant._ But, I tell you, I can't do any different. _Ge._ What would you do if you had some harder job yet? _Ant._ Since I can't do this, I couldn't do that. _Ge._ Come, Phædria, there's no use fooling with this fellow; we're only wasting our time. Let's be off. _Phæd._ All right, come on. _Ant._ O say, hold on! What if I pretend to be bold. [_Strikes an attitude_]. Will that do? _Ge._ Stuff and nonsense. _Ant._ Well, how will this expression do? _Ge._ It won't do at all. _Ant._ How is this? _Ge._ That's more like it. _Ant._ Is this better? _Ge._ That's just right. Keep on looking that way. And remember to answer him word for word, tit for tat, and don't let the angry old man get the better of you. _Ant._ I--I--w-won't. _Ge._ Tell him you were forced to it against your will-- _Phæd._ By the law, by the court. _Ge._ Do you catch on?--But who is this old man I see coming up the street? Antipho casts one look of terror down the street, cries: "It's father himself, I just can't stay," and takes to his heels. _Phæd._ Now, Geta, what next? _Ge._ Well, you're in for a row; and I shall be hung up by the heels and flogged, unless I am much mistaken. But what we were advising Antipho to do just now, we must do ourselves. _Phæd._ O, come off with your "musts"! Tell me just what to do. _Ge._ Do you remember how you said when we were planning how to get out of blame for this business that "Phormio's suit was just dead easy, sure to win"? Well, that's the game we want to work now,--or a better one yet, if you can think of one. Now you go ahead and I'll wait here in ambush, in case you want any help.