But Euclio has no intention of using the gold in that or in any other fashion. It becomes his one delight, and his perpetual torment. He leaves it buried in its hiding-place: but he is in continual terror lest it should be discovered. He scarcely dares move from home, lest when he returns he should find it gone. Every noise that he hears, he fancies proceeds from some attempt to carry off his treasure. He leads his poor old housekeeper, his one slave Staphyla, a wretched life, from his perpetual worrying. When his neighbour Megadorus comes to ask the hand of his daughter in marriage, he is sure that it is because he has heard in some way of the gold. His continual protest is that he is miserably poor. One of the most ludicrous situations is the dilemma in which he finds himself placed, when upon some occasion a dole of public money is announced for the poorer citizens. If he does not attend and claim his share, his neighbours will think he is a rich man, and be sure to try to hunt out his money: if he goes to the ward-mote to receive it, and has to wait perhaps some time for the distribution, what may not have become of his darling "Pot" during his absence? Acute critics have said, apparently with truth, that in Euclio we have the pure miser; who has no desire to increase his store, no actual pleasure in the possession, no sense of latent power in the gold which he treasures, but who is a very slave to it in the terror of losing it.
Euclio, though much alarmed at first as to the probable motives of Megadorus's request, consents to give him his daughter; still, however, under protest that he is a very poor man, which the other fully believes. He can give no dowry with her; but Megadorus is
