Page:Tales from Shakspeare (1831).djvu/235

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THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.
219

his slave, so that the freedoms of speech he allowed in Dromio were greater than is usual between masters and their servants.

When Antiphohs of Syracuse had sent Dromio away, he stood a while thinking over his solitary wanderings in search of his mother and his brother, of whom in no place where he landed could he hear the least tidings; and he said sorrowfully to himself, "I am like a drop of water in the ocean, which seeking to find its fellow drop, loses itself in the wide sea. So I unhappily, to find a mother and a brother, do lose myself."

While he was thus meditating on his weary travels, which had hitherto been so useless, Dromio (as he thought) returned. Antipholis, wondering that he came back so soon, asked him where he had left the money. Now it was not his own Dromio, but the twin-brother that lived with Antipholis of Ephesus, that he spoke to. The two Dromios and the two Antipholises were still as much alike as Ægeon had said they were in their infancy; therefore no wonder Antipholis thought it was his own slave returned, and asked him why he came back so soon. Dromio replied, "My mistress sent me to bid you come to dinner. The capon burns, and the pig falls from the spit, and the meat will be all cold if you do not come home." "These jests are out of season," said Antipholis: "where did you leave the money?" Dromio still answering, that his mistress had sent him to fetch Antipholis o dinner: "What mistress?" said Antipholis. " Why, your worship's wife, sir," replied Dromio. Antipholis having no wife, he was very angry with Dromio, and said, " Because I fami-