(_stopping and peering around timorously_) Who’s a bolder
man, a more audacious man than I am--know all about the
young bloods and their capers, I do, yet here I am strolling
around all alone at this time of night! (_seems to hear
something and jumps_) What if the police should lock me up
in jail? To-morrow I should be taken out of that preserve
closet and get served--to a rope’s end; and not a word would
they let me say for myself,[C] and not a bit of help could I
get from master, and there wouldn’t be a soul but what would
reckon I deserved a hiding.

[Footnote C: Being a slave]

ita quasi incudem me miserum homines octo validi caedant: 159-160
ita peregre adveniens hospitio publicitus accipiar. 161-162
haec eri immodestia
coegit, me qui hoc noctis a portu ingratiis excitavit.
nonne idem hoc luci me mittere potuit?

Those eight strong wardens would pound my poor
carcass just as if I was an anvil: that is how I should be
entertained on coming home from abroad--a public reception.
(_disgustedly_) It’s master’s impatience forced me into
this, routing me out from the harbour at this time of night,
against my will. Might have sent me on the same errand by
daylight, mightn’t he?

opulento homini hoc servitus dura est,
hoc magis miser est divitis servos
noctesque diesque assiduo satis superque est,