Slaves ever fearful of the mills or quarries are yet prone to the most abominable "freshness" towards their masters. The irrepressible Pseudolus in reading a letter from Calidorus' mistress says (27 ff.):
"What letters! Humph! I'm afraid the Sibyl is the only person capable of interpreting these.
"CAL. Oh why do you speak so rudely of those lovely letters written on a lovely tablet with a lovely hand?
"PS. Well, would you mind telling me if hens have hands? For these look to me very like hen-scratches.
"CAL. You insulting beast! Read, or return the tablet!
"PS. Oh, I'll read all right, all right. Just focus your mind on this.
"CAL. (Pointing vacantly to his head.) Mind? It's not here.
"PS. What! Go get one quick then![162]."
In order that the machinations of these cunning slaves may mature, it is usually necessary to portray their victims as the veriest fools. Witness the cock-and-bull story by which Stasimus, in Trin. 515 ff., convinces Philto that his master's land is an undesirable real estate prospect. Dordalus in Per. (esp. 493 ff.) exhibits a certain amount of caution in face of Toxilus' "confidence game," but that he should be victimized at all stamps him as a caricature.
LeGrand is certainly right in pronouncing the cunning slave a pure convention, adapted from the Greek and so unsuitable to Roman society that even Plautus found it necessary to apologize for their unrestrained gambols, on the ground that 'that was the way they did in Athens!'[163]