Are driven almost wild. And this, remember,
Was but one evening. What's your son to do,
And you, my friend, that will have to keep her always?
Men. Let him do what he will; let him take all,
Spend, squander it upon her; I'm content,
So I may keep my son.
Chremes sees that it is impossible to argue with the remorseful father in these first moments of his son's return. But it will be a very dangerous thing for young Clinia to know that his father is thus offering him carte blanche for all his own and his mistress's extravagances. He therefore begs his friend, instead of openly supplying the money, to allow himself to be made the victim of a kind of pious fraud. The amount of expenditure for the present may not be of so much importance, provided the son is not led to believe that he has unlimited command of his father's purse. Chremes will manage that the supplies required for the lady's demands shall be drawn from Menedemus on some specious pretext. He has evidently a great fancy for transacting other people's business; for though he has an arbitration case which he ought to attend to-day, he will go and have it put off, that he may have time to arrange this matter for his friend. The happy father willingly consents, and is all impatience to be cheated.
Syrus meanwhile is racking his wits to know how he is to get money for his young master to lavish upon the extravagant Bacchis. In this mood his elder master meets him; and knowing him to possess the talent for intrigue and deception which is common to his class, asks his help to impose some tale upon
