the household. Before morning it is discovered that the fair slave whom Thraso had so recently presented to Thais has eloped with the Ethiopian. The virtuous indignation of every waiting-gentlewoman in the establishment is roused by such an outrageous breach of all the proprieties, and they rush on the stage with voluble outcries—"Eloped! and with a black man!" A friend of Chærea's has been considerably astonished at meeting him hurrying along the street in a strange costume and with his face blacked; but the young man makes him his confidant, and obtains from him a change of clothes. Phædria,—who, as his slave Parmeno had foretold, has found it impossible to remain even two days in the country away from the object of his affections, and who has returned to the city and is lingering about Thais's door,—hears the story, and goes off to his own house to see if anything has been heard there of the fugitives. He finds the real Ethiopian hidden there in Chærea's clothes, and hauls him off, under a shower of blows, to be cross-examined by Thais and her domestics. But they all agree that this is not at all like their Ethiopian, who was a much better-looking fellow: and Phædria extracts at last from the terrified man that this is some trick, which promises to have serious consequences, of his madcap brother's.
The Captain meanwhile has quarrelled with Thais, believing that after all she prefers Phædria to himself; and not altogether satisfied with the private interviews which she has lately been holding with a young gentleman from the country—a somewhat rustic sort of personage, but whom Thais seems for some reason to treat
