ENTER CURCULIO, his slave, Cappadox, Lyco, AND Planesium INTO DOORWAY,

CURCULIO: You go in front, young lady; I cannot watch what is behind me. (to Cappadox) The Captain said that all the jewellery and clothes she had were his, too.

CAPPADOX: Nobody denies it.

CURCULIO: (firmly) It is rather better to remind you, however.

LYCO: (to Cappadox) Remember, if anyone should succeed in claiming her as a freeborn girl, you promised I should have all my money back, one hundred and twenty pounds.

CAPPADOX: I will remember; be easy about that. Yes, I say so again now.

CURCULIO: And I shall want you to remember all this, too.

CAPPADOX: Yes, yes, I'll hand her over to you formally and legally.

CURCULIO: (scornful) I receive anything formally and legally from a pimp? Fellows that own nothing but the bare tongue they swear off honest debts with! You fellows are not the owners of those you formally and legally sell, those you set free, those you order about. You have no title to them, and you yourselves can give no one else a title to them. In my humble opinion, the whole pimp tribe occupies the social position of flies, gnats, bugs, lice, and fleas: you are a pest, a plague, a general nuisance, of no good to anybody, and no decent person dares stand beside you in the forum. If anyone does, he is censured, eyed, condemned; he is on the road to ruin, they say, even though he has done nothing.

LYCO: (chuckling) Gad! You have a pretty acquaintance with pimps, in my opinion, One-eye.

CURCULIO: (turning on him with asperity) And by heaven, I put you people in the same class and category; you match them perfectly. They, at least, do business in private, you in the open forum. You mangle men with usury, they with vile solicitation and dens of vice. The people have passed bills without number against you, and once they pass them, you smash them; you always find some loophole. To you laws are like boiling water that soon grows cold.

LYCO: (aside, wryly) I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

CAPPADOX: (judicially, With a sour grin at Lyco) There is much hard thinking behind those hard words.

CURCULIO: Hard words are hard if spoken to those that do not deserve them, but if they do deserve them, soft–at least in my opinion. None of your surety for me, or any other pimp’s either. (about to go) Anything else, Lyco?

LYCO: (eagerly) Good-bye, good -bye!

CURCULIO: Good-bye. (turns away, Planesium lingering tearfully)

CAPPADOX: (to Curculio) Here, you! I say!

CURCULIO: Out with it! What do you want ?

CAPPADOX: (virtuously) Do take care that this girl be well treated. She was well brought up at my house, and modestly; I saw to it myself.

CURCULIO: In case you pity her, what will you pay toward her being well treated?

CAPPADOX: (taken aback) Oh hang!

CURCULIO: That is just what you need.

CAPPADOX: (to Planesium) What are you crying about, silly? Never you fear. Good heavens, I have disposed of you well. Now be a good girl, mind. Go along with him prettily, my pretty.

LYCO: Well, Summanus, anything more I can do now ?

CURCULIO: Good-bye, and good luck to you, for you have been most accommodating with your time and money both.

LYCO: Give my best regards to your patron.

CURCULIO: I shall do so. [EXIT WITH Planesium AND SLAVE ]

LYCO: Anything further, pimp?

CAPPADOX: The payment of that forty pounds, so that I may look out for myself till things (groans) go better with me.

LYCO: You’ll be paid; send for it tomorrow. [EXIT Lyco ]

CAPPADOX: (wearily contented ) Seeing I have managed that affair well, I must go in the temple here and pray. Why, I bought that girl for forty pounds, long ago when she was only a little thing, but I have never set eyes on the seller since. Dead, I dare say. Well, what's the odds? I have the cash. When the gods are propitious to a man, they throw money in his way, they certainly do. Now to offer sacrifice I am resolved to take good care of myself.

[ EXIT INTO TEMPLE ]