ENTER Planesium INTO DOORWAY,

PLANESIUM: (excitedly) Hurry, Phaedromus!

ENTER Phaedromus INTO DOORWAY,

PHAEDROMUS: Hurry? Why?

PLANESIUM: So as not to lose the parasite. It means everything.

PHAEDROMUS: (dryly) And I have nothing, for everything I had I ran through in no time.

PLANESIUM: (seeing Curculio) I have him!

PHAEDROMUS: What’s it all about ?

PLANESIUM: Ask him where he got that ring there. My father used to wear that ring.

CURCULIO: Well, so did my mother’s sister.

PLANESIUM: My mother let him take it.

CURCULIO: (banteringly) And this father passed it on to you, no doubt.

PLANESIUM: You’re talking nonsense.

CURCULIO: A habit of mine–that is the way I pick up an easier living, you see.

PLANESIUM: (anxiously) Well? Well? For heaven’s sake, don’t keep me from my parents!

CURCULIO: Eh? I? (examining the ring in mock consternation) Have I got your mother and father tucked away under the stone here?

PLANESIUM: I was born free.

CURCULIO: So were lots of other folks that are slaving it now.

PHAEDROMUS: (to Curculio, testily) Really now, this is too much.

CURCULIO: Well, I told you how it came into my hands. How many times do you need to be told? I tricked a soldier at a game of dice, I say.

ENTER Therapontigonus DOLEFULLY.

THERAPONTIGONUS: (seeing Curculio) Saved! There he is, there is my man! (roaring) Ah, my good sir, what now ?

CURCULIO: (calmly) I’m all attention. Three throws, if you like, for–(scanning Captain with a grin) oh, well, for a, military cloak.

THERAPONTIGONUS: You be damned, with all your throes of throat and belly! I Give me back my money or my girl this instant! (2•)

CURCULIO: What money? What sort of bosh are you talking to me? What girl are you asking back from me?

THERAPONTIGONUS: The one you took from the pimp to-day, you enormity of a man!

CURCULIO: Not one did I take.

THERAPONTIGONUS: I certainly see her (pointing to Planesium) right before my face!

PHAEDROMUS: (urbanely) This young lady is free.

THERAPONTIGONUS: My maidservant free, when I never freed her?

PHAEDROMUS: Who gave you any legal right to her? Whom did you buy her from? Inform me.

THERAPONTIGONUS: I? I settled for her through my banker. And I’ll have the money, four times over, from you and the pimp.

PHAEDROMUS: (blustering in turn) Come, you hardened trader in kidnapped and freeborn maidens, off to court with you!

THERAPONTIGONUS: Not I.

PHAEDROMUS: (to Curculio) Can I call on you to testify?

THERAPONTIGONUS: (interrupting) You can not.

PHAEDROMUS: Curse you, Captain! May you live without testes yourself then! (to Curculio again) But I call on you, a man I can call on. Come here.

THERAPONTIGONUS: A slave testifying?

CURCULIO: (allowing Phaedromus to touch his ear) Look! Here! Just to show you I am a free man! Now then, off to court with you.

THERAPONTIGONUS: (striking him) And here’s one for you!

CURCULIO: (bawling) Help, citizens, help!

THERAPONTIGONUS: What are you yelling for ?

PHAEDROMUS: What did you lay hands on him for ?

THERAPONTIGONUS: Because I chose to.

PHAEDROMUS: (aside) You come here, Curculio. (aside to Therapontigonus) I’ll put that fellow into your hands. (to Curculio again) Be still!

PLANESIUM: (thinking that Phaedromus is yielding to the Captain) Phaedromus! for heaven’s sake, save me!

PHAEDROMUS: As I would my very soul! (to Therapontigonus, politely) Captain, pray tell me where you got that ring which the parasite here filched from you.

PLANESIUM: (falling at the Captain’s ,feet) I beg you by these knees I clasp, do let me know!

THERAPONTIGONUS: (haughtily) How does that concern you two? Come, ask me where I obtained my cloak and this blade of mine.

CURCULIO: (nursing his sore spots) The airs he gives himself, the braggart!

THERAPONTIGONUS: Unhand that fellow, (indicating Curculio) and I’ll tell you all.

CURCULIO: All he tells you amounts to nothing.

PLANESIUM: (motioning Curculio aside) Do let me know, I beg you!

THERAPONTIGONUS: (to Planesium) I will. Arise. Now then, attention, both of you! It belonged to my father; Periphanes

PLANESIUM: What? Periphanes!

THERAPONTIGONUS: Before he died he quite properly gave it to me, as his own son.

PLANESIUM: Good heavens!

THERAPONTIGONUS: So he made me his heir.

PLANESIUM: Oh god of filial love, do keep me, for I have loyally kept thee in honour! (falling on the Captain’s neck) Brother, my own dear brother!

THERAPONTIGONUS: (startled) How am I to believe that? Come, come, if you say true, who was your mother ?

PLANESIUM: Cleobula.

THERAPONTIGONUS: And your nurse?

PLANESIUM: Archestrata. She had taken me out to see the show at the Dionysiac festival. We had scarcely arrived, and I been put in my place, when a perfect hurricane arose; the seats caved in–I was so terrified! Then someone or other seized me, scared and trembling as I was, neither alive nor dead. How he carried me off I can’t say.

THERAPONTIGONUS: I remember the panic of that day. But tell me this–where is the man that stole you?

PLANESIUM: I don’t know. But I have always kept this ring (holding out her hand) with me; I had it on when I was lost, long ago.

THERAPONTIGONUS: Give it here! Let me look at it!

CURCULIO: (as Planesium takes it off) Are you crazy, to trust it to him?

PLANESIUM: Oh, let me be!

THERAPONTIGONUS: Great heavens! This is the ring I sent you on your birthday! I know it as well as I know myself. (embracing her) Ah, my sister!

PLANESIUM: Oh, my own dear brother!

PHAEDROMUS: God bless you both in this!

CURCULIO: God bless us all, I say. (to Therapontigonus) You, sir, should celebrate your arrival to-day by giving us a dinner, a sororal dinner; as for him, (indicating Phaedromus) tomorrow he will give us a nuptial dinner. (pauses) We accept the invitations.

THERAPONTIGONUS: Keep still, you!

CURCULIO: I will not keep still, now that everything is ending happily. Captain, promise your sister to this gentleman. I will give her a dowry myself.

THERAPONTIGONUS: What dowry?

CURCULIO: I? An allowance–I will allow her to support me all her life. And by Jove, I mean it.

THERAPONTIGONUS: (to Curculio) You will do me pleasure. (to others) But the pimp here owes us one hundred and twenty pounds.

PHAEDROMUS: How so?

THERAPONTIGONUS: Because he engaged, for his part, in case anyone claimed the girl as free born, to refund all the money without dispute. Now to the pimp!

CURCULIO: Capital!

PHAEDROMUS: But first I want to settle my own affair.

THERAPONTIGONUS: What is that?

PHAEDROMUS: That you promise me your sister.

CURCULIO: Hurry up, Captain, let him marry her.

THERAPONTIGONUS: If she wishes.

PLANESIUM: I long to, brother dear!

THERAPONTIGONUS: So be it.

CURCULIO: (with dignity) I thank you.

PHAEDROMUS: You consent to the marriage, Captain?

THERAPONTIGONUS: I consent.

CURCULIO: And I–I consent to the arrangement, too.

THERAPONTIGONUS: Charming of you! (looking down street) But see! Up strides the pimp, my treasure!

[ THEY STEP BACK ]