A young man, Philolaches, while his father has been travelling abroad in Egypt, has been partying, carousing and otherwise
wasting the family fortune. He has borrowed money to buy his mistress and then has set her free. Suddenly the old gentleman returns. The slave who was in charge of his son has led the boy astray and now is deathly terror of his more-than-well-deserved punishment. To prevent the old man from walking in on the drunken son with his mistress and their other partying buddies, the slave Tranio comes up with a scheme to deceive the old man. He locks up the
house, and when the old man comes and knocks on the door, he
persuades him they had to abandon the house because it is haunted by a terrifying apparition of a guest who was slain and buried in the house by the former owner. when the moneylender comes to collect the interest on the money he loaned the boy in order to buy his mistress, the slave Tranio tells the old man he helped the boy to buy the house next door, and persuades the neighbour to let his master inspect the neighbours house as if it were his own. However, the old man and the neighbour finally compare notes and all the deception comes out when the boy's friend's slaves come over trying to find their master, and they tell all. The old man is going to have Tranio crucified for making a fool of him, as well as his other crimes and derelictions of duty, but his son's best friend, Callidamates, comes by and persuades him to forgive not only his son, but also Tranio. This play is outrageously funny, far more even than it seems to be in summary.