Love for Love [38]
Odzooks, I'm a young man--odzooks, I'm a young man, and I'll make it appear,--odd, you're devilish handsome. Faith and troth, you're very handsome, and I'm very young and very lusty. Odsbud, hussy, you know how to choose, and so do I. Odd, I think we are very well met. Give me your hand, odd, let me kiss it; 'tis as warm and as soft--as what? Odd, as t'other hand--give me t'other hand, and I'll mumble 'em and kiss 'em till they melt in my mouth.
ANG. Hold, Sir Sampson. You're profuse of your vigour before your time. You'll spend your estate before you come to it.
SIR SAMP. No, no, only give you a rent-roll of my possessions. Ah, baggage, I warrant you for little Sampson. Odd, Sampson's a very good name for an able fellow: your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning.
ANG. Have a care and don't over-act your part. If you remember, Sampson, the strongest of the name, pulled an old house over his head at last.
SIR SAMP. Say you so, hussy? Come, let's go then; odd, I long to be pulling too; come away. Odso, here's somebody coming.
SCENE III.
TATTLE, JEREMY.
TATT. Is not that she gone out just now?
JERE. Ay, sir; she's just going to the place of appointment. Ah, sir, if you are not very faithful and close in this business, you'll certainly be the death of a person that has a most extraordinary passion for your honour's service.
TATT. Ay, who's that?
JERE. Even my unworthy self, sir. Sir, I have had an appetite to be fed with your commands a great while; and now, sir, my former master having much troubled the fountain of his understanding, it is a very plausible occasion for me to quench my thirst at the spring of your bounty. I thought I could not recommend myself better to you, sir, than by the delivery of a great beauty and fortune into your arms, whom I have heard you sigh for.
TATT. I'll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuading accent.
JERE. Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory in my head: I have been at Cambridge.
TATT. Ay; 'tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university: but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature: private, close, ha?
JERE. Oh, sir, for that, sir, 'tis my chief talent: I'm as secret as the head of Nilus.
TATT. Ay? Who's he, though? A privy counsellor?
JERE. O ignorance! [Aside.] A cunning Egyptian, sir, that with his arms would overrun the country, yet nobody could ever find out his head-quarters.
TATT. Close dog! A good whoremaster, I warrant him: --the time draws nigh, Jeremy. Angelica will be veiled like a nun, and I must be hooded like a friar, ha, Jeremy?
JERE. Ay, sir; hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the quarry. It is the whim of my master's madness to be so dressed, and she is so in love with him she'll comply with anything to please him. Poor lady, I'm sure she'll have reason to pray for me, when she finds what a happy exchange she has made, between a madman and so accomplished a gentleman.
TATT. Ay, faith, so she will, Jeremy: you're a good friend to her, poor creature. I swear I do it hardly so much in consideration of myself as compassion to her.
JERE. 'Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a fine woman with thirty thousand pound from throwing herself away.
TATT. So 'tis, faith; I might have saved several others in my time, but, i'gad, I could never find in my heart to marry anybody before.
JERE. Well, sir, I'll go and tell her my master's coming, and meet you in half a quarter of an hour with your disguise at your own lodgings. You must talk a little madly: she won't distinguish the tone of your voice.
TATT. No, no; let me alone for a counterfeit. I'll be ready for you.
SCENE IV.
TATTLE, MISS PRUE.
MISS. O Mr Tattle, are you here? I'm glad I have found you; I have been looking up and down for you like anything, till I'm as tired as anything in the
ANG. Hold, Sir Sampson. You're profuse of your vigour before your time. You'll spend your estate before you come to it.
SIR SAMP. No, no, only give you a rent-roll of my possessions. Ah, baggage, I warrant you for little Sampson. Odd, Sampson's a very good name for an able fellow: your Sampsons were strong dogs from the beginning.
ANG. Have a care and don't over-act your part. If you remember, Sampson, the strongest of the name, pulled an old house over his head at last.
SIR SAMP. Say you so, hussy? Come, let's go then; odd, I long to be pulling too; come away. Odso, here's somebody coming.
SCENE III.
TATTLE, JEREMY.
TATT. Is not that she gone out just now?
JERE. Ay, sir; she's just going to the place of appointment. Ah, sir, if you are not very faithful and close in this business, you'll certainly be the death of a person that has a most extraordinary passion for your honour's service.
TATT. Ay, who's that?
JERE. Even my unworthy self, sir. Sir, I have had an appetite to be fed with your commands a great while; and now, sir, my former master having much troubled the fountain of his understanding, it is a very plausible occasion for me to quench my thirst at the spring of your bounty. I thought I could not recommend myself better to you, sir, than by the delivery of a great beauty and fortune into your arms, whom I have heard you sigh for.
TATT. I'll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou art a pretty fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind of phrase, and with a good persuading accent.
JERE. Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory in my head: I have been at Cambridge.
TATT. Ay; 'tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an university: but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature: private, close, ha?
JERE. Oh, sir, for that, sir, 'tis my chief talent: I'm as secret as the head of Nilus.
TATT. Ay? Who's he, though? A privy counsellor?
JERE. O ignorance! [Aside.] A cunning Egyptian, sir, that with his arms would overrun the country, yet nobody could ever find out his head-quarters.
TATT. Close dog! A good whoremaster, I warrant him: --the time draws nigh, Jeremy. Angelica will be veiled like a nun, and I must be hooded like a friar, ha, Jeremy?
JERE. Ay, sir; hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the quarry. It is the whim of my master's madness to be so dressed, and she is so in love with him she'll comply with anything to please him. Poor lady, I'm sure she'll have reason to pray for me, when she finds what a happy exchange she has made, between a madman and so accomplished a gentleman.
TATT. Ay, faith, so she will, Jeremy: you're a good friend to her, poor creature. I swear I do it hardly so much in consideration of myself as compassion to her.
JERE. 'Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a fine woman with thirty thousand pound from throwing herself away.
TATT. So 'tis, faith; I might have saved several others in my time, but, i'gad, I could never find in my heart to marry anybody before.
JERE. Well, sir, I'll go and tell her my master's coming, and meet you in half a quarter of an hour with your disguise at your own lodgings. You must talk a little madly: she won't distinguish the tone of your voice.
TATT. No, no; let me alone for a counterfeit. I'll be ready for you.
SCENE IV.
TATTLE, MISS PRUE.
MISS. O Mr Tattle, are you here? I'm glad I have found you; I have been looking up and down for you like anything, till I'm as tired as anything in the