SIR SAMP. My son, sir; what son, sir? My son Benjamin, hoh?
JERE. No, sir, Mr Valentine, my master; 'tis the first time he has
been
abroad since his
confinement, and he comes to pay his duty to
you.
SIR SAMP. Well, sir.
SCENE VII.
FORESIGHT, SIR SAMPSON, VALENTINE, JEREMY.
JERE. He is here, sir.
VAL. Your
blessing, sir.
SIR SAMP. You've had it already, sir; I think I sent it you to-day
in a bill of four thousand pound: a great deal of money, brother
Foresight.
FORE. Ay, indeed, Sir Sampson, a great deal of money for a young
man; I wonder what he can do with it!
SIR SAMP. Body o' me, so do I. Hark ye, Valentine, if there be too
much, refund the superfluity; dost hear, boy?
VAL. Superfluity, sir? It will
scarce pay my debts. I hope you
will have more
indulgence than to
oblige me to those hard conditions
which my necessity signed to.
SIR SAMP. Sir, how, I
beseech you, what were you pleased to
intimate,
concerningindulgence?
VAL. Why, sir, that you would not go to the
extremity of the
conditions, but
release me at least from some part.
SIR SAMP. Oh, sir, I understand you--that's all, ha?
VAL. Yes, sir, all that I
presume to ask. But what you, out of
fatherly
fondness, will be pleased to add, shall be
doubly welcome.
SIR SAMP. No doubt of it, sweet sir; but your
filial piety, and my
fatherly
fondness would fit like two tallies. Here's a rogue,
brother Foresight, makes a
bargain under hand and seal in the
morning, and would be
released from it in the afternoon; here's a
rogue, dog, here's
conscience and
honesty; this is your wit now,
this is the
morality of your wits! You are a wit, and have been a
beau, and may be a--why sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal--
can you deny it?
VAL. Sir, I don't deny it.
SIR SAMP. Sirrah, you'll be hanged; I shall live to see you go up
Holborn Hill. Has he not a rogue's face? Speak brother, you
understand physiognomy, a
hanging look to me--of all my boys the
most
unlike me; he has a
damned Tyburn face, without the benefit o'
the clergy.
FORE. Hum--truly I don't care to
discourage a young man,--he has a
violent death in his face; but I hope no danger of
hanging.
VAL. Sir, is this usage for your son?--For that old weather-headed
fool, I know how to laugh at him; but you, sir -
SIR SAMP. You, sir; and you, sir: why, who are you, sir?
VAL. Your son, sir.
SIR SAMP. That's more than I know, sir, and I believe not.
VAL. Faith, I hope not.
SIR SAMP. What, would you have your mother a whore? Did you ever
hear the like? Did you ever hear the like? Body o' me -
VAL. I would have an excuse for your barbarity and
unnatural usage.
SIR SAMP. Excuse! Impudence! Why, sirrah, mayn't I do what I
please? Are not you my slave? Did not I beget you? And might not
I have chosen whether I would have begot you or no? 'Oons, who are
you? Whence came you? What brought you into the world? How came
you here, sir? Here, to stand here, upon those two legs, and look
erect with that audacious face, ha? Answer me that! Did you come a
volunteer into the world? Or did I, with the
lawful authority of a
parent, press you to the service?
VAL. I know no more why I came than you do why you called me. But
here I am, and if you don't mean to provide for me, I desire you
would leave me as you found me.
SIR SAMP. With all my heart: come, uncase, strip, and go naked out
of the world as you came into 't.
VAL. My clothes are soon put off. But you must also divest me of
reason, thought, passions, inclinations, affections, appetites,
senses, and the huge train of attendants that you begot along with
me.
SIR SAMP. Body o' me, what a manyheaded
monster have I propagated!
VAL. I am of myself, a plain, easy, simple creature, and to be kept
at small expense; but the retinue that you gave me are
craving and
invincible; they are so many devils that you have raised, and will
have employment.
SIR SAMP. 'Oons, what had I to do to get children,--can't a private
man be born without all these followers? Why, nothing under an
emperor should be born with appetites. Why, at this rate, a fellow
that has but a groat in his pocket may have a
stomachcapable of a
ten
shilling ordinary.
JERE. Nay, that's as clear as the sun; I'll make oath of it before
any justice in Middlesex.
SIR SAMP. Here's a cormorant too. 'S'heart this fellow was not
born with you? I did not beget him, did I?
JERE. By the
provision that's made for me, you might have begot me
too. Nay, and to tell your
worship another truth, I believe you
did, for I find I was born with those same whoreson appetites too,
that my master speaks of.
SIR SAMP. Why, look you there, now. I'll
maintain it, that by the
rule of right reason, this fellow ought to have been born without a
palate. 'S'heart, what should he do with a distinguishing taste? I
warrant now he'd rather eat a pheasant, than a piece of poor John;
and smell, now, why I
warrant he can smell, and loves perfumes above
a stink. Why there's it; and music, don't you love music,
scoundrel?
JERE. Yes; I have a
reasonable good ear, sir, as to jigs and
country dances, and the like; I don't much matter your solos or
sonatas, they give me the spleen.
SIR SAMP. The spleen, ha, ha, ha; a pox
confound you--solos or
sonatas? 'Oons, whose son are you? How were you engendered,
muckworm?
JERE. I am by my father, the son of a chair-man; my mother sold
oysters in winter, and cucumbers in summer; and I came
upstairs into
the world; for I was born in a cellar.
FORE. By your looks, you should go
upstairs out of the world too,
friend.
SIR SAMP. And if this rogue were anatomized now, and dissected, he
has his vessels of
digestion and concoction, and so forth, large
enough for the inside of a
cardinal, this son of a cucumber.--These
things are unaccountable and un
reasonable. Body o' me, why was not
I a bear, that my cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws?
Nature has been provident only to bears and spiders; the one has its
nutriment in his own hands; and t'other spins his
habitation out of
his own entrails.
VAL. Fortune was provident enough to supply all the necessities of
my nature, if I had my right of inheritance.
SIR SAMP. Again! 'Oons, han't you four thousand pounds? If I had
it again, I would not give thee a groat.--What, would'st thou have
me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals? S'heart, live
by your wits: you were always fond of the wits, now let's see, if
you have wit enough to keep yourself. Your brother will be in town
to-night or to-morrow morning, and then look you perform covenants,
and so your friend and servant: --come, brother Foresight.
SCENE VIII.
VALENTINE, JEREMY.
JERE. I told you what your visit would come to.
VAL. 'Tis as much as I expected. I did not come to see him, I came
to see Angelica: but since she was gone
abroad, it was easily
turned another way, and at least looked well on my side. What's
here? Mrs Foresight and Mrs Frail, they are
earnest. I'll avoid
'em. Come this way, and go and enquire when Angelica will return.
SCENE IX.
MRS FORESIGHT and MRS FRAIL.
MRS FRAIL. What have you to do to watch me? 'S'life I'll do what I
please.
MRS FORE. You will?
MRS FRAIL. Yes, marry will I. A great piece of business to go to
Covent Garden Square in a hackney coach, and take a turn with one's
friend.
MRS FORE. Nay, two or three turns, I'll take my oath.
MRS FRAIL. Well, what if I took twenty--I
warrant if you had been
there, it had been only
innocentrecreation. Lord, where's the
comfort of this life if we can't have the happiness of conversing
where we like?
MRS FORE. But can't you
converse at home? I own it, I think
there's no happiness like conversing with an
agreeable man; I don't
quarrel at that, nor I don't think but your conversation was very
innocent; but the place is public, and to be seen with a man in a
hackney coach is scandalous. What if anybody else should have seen
you
alight, as I did? How can anybody be happy while they're in
perpetual fear of being seen and censured? Besides, it would not
only
reflect upon you, sister, but me.
MRS FRAIL. Pooh, here's a clutter: why should it
reflect upon you?
I don't doubt but you have thought yourself happy in a hackney coach
before now. If I had gone to Knight's Bridge, or to Chelsea, or to
Spring Garden, or Barn Elms with a man alone, something might have
been said.
MRS FORE. Why, was I ever in any of those places? What do you
mean, sister?
MRS FRAIL. Was I? What do you mean?
MRS FORE. You have been at a worse place.
MRS FRAIL. I at a worse place, and with a man!
MRS FORE. I suppose you would not go alone to the World's End.
MRS FRAIL. The World's End! What, do you mean to banter me?
MRS FORE. Poor
innocent! You don't know that there's a place
called the World's End? I'll swear you can keep your
countenancepurely: you'd make an
admirable player.
MRS FRAIL. I'll swear you have a great deal of confidence, and in
my mind too much for the stage.
MRS FORE. Very well, that will appear who has most; you never were
at the World's End?
MRS FRAIL. No.
MRS FORE. You deny it
positively to my face?
MRS FRAIL. Your face, what's your face?
MRS FORE. No matter for that, it's as good a face as yours.
MRS FRAIL. Not by a dozen years' wearing. But I do deny it
positively to your face, then.
MRS FORE. I'll allow you now to find fault with my face; for I'll
swear your impudence has put me out of
countenance. But look you
here now, where did you lose this gold bodkin? Oh, sister, sister!
MRS FRAIL. My bodkin!
MRS FORE. Nay, 'tis yours, look at it.
MRS FRAIL. Well, if you go to that, where did you find this bodkin?
Oh, sister, sister! Sister every way.
MRS FORE. Oh, devil on't, that I could not discover her without
betraying myself. [Aside.]
MRS FRAIL. I have heard gentlemen say, sister, that one should take
great care, when one makes a
thrust in
fencing, not to lie open
oneself.
MRS FORE. It's very true, sister. Well, since all's out, and as
you say, since we are both wounded, let us do what is often done in
duels, take care of one another, and grow better friends than
before.
MRS FRAIL. With all my heart: ours are but slight flesh wounds,
and if we keep 'em from air, not at all dangerous. Well, give me
your hand in token of sisterly
secrecy and affection.
MRS FORE. Here 'tis, with all my heart.
MRS FRAIL. Well, as an
earnest of friendship and confidence, I'll
acquaint you with a design that I have. To tell truth, and speak
openly one to another, I'm afraid the world have observed us more
than we have observed one another. You have a rich husband, and are
provided for. I am at a loss, and have no great stock either of
fortune or
reputation, and
therefore must look
sharply about me.