Further, if any one in affluent circumstances has reared an ailing son, lest a too open complaisance to a single man should detect you, creep gradually into the hope[ of succeeding him], and that you may be set down as second heir; and, if any casualty ahould dispatch the boy to Hades, you may come into the vacancy. This die seldom fails. Whoever delivers his will to you to read, be mindful to decline it, and push the parchment from you: [do it] however in such a manner, that you may catch with an oblique glance, what the first page intimates to be in the second clause: run over with a quick eye, whether you are sole heir, or co - heir with many. Sometimes a well- seasoned lawyer, risen from a Quinquevir, shall delude the gaping raven; and the fortune- hunter Nasica shall be laughed at by Coranus. 