Dem. Æschinus! how goes it?
Æsch. Ha, my father! are you here?
Dem. Your father, indeed, both by affection and by nature; as I love you more than my very eyes; but why don’t you send for your wife?
Æsch. So I wish to do; but I am waiting for the music-girl[90] and people to sing the nuptial song.
Dem. Come now, are you willing to listen to an old fellow like me?
Æsch. What is it?
Dem. Let those things alone, the nuptial song, the crowds, the torches,[91] and the music-girls, and order the stone wall in the garden[92] here to be pulled down with all dispatch, and bring her over that way; make but one house of the two; bring the mother and all the domestics over to our house.
Æsch. With all my heart, kindest father.
Dem. (aside.) Well done! now I am called “kind.” My brother’s house will become a thoroughfare; he will be bringing home a multitude, incurring expense in many ways: what matters it to me? I, as the kind Demea, shall get into favor. Now then, bid that Babylonian[93] pay down his twenty minæ. (To Syrus.) Syrus, do you delay to go and do it?
Syr. What am I to do?