LORY. Gad so, sir, I’m glad to find I was not so well acquainted with the strength of your conscience as with the weakness of your purse. TOM FASHION. Why, art thou so impenetrable a blockhead as to believe he’ll help me with a farthing? LORY. Not if you treat him _de haut en bas_, as you used to do. TOM FASHION. Why, how wouldst have me treat him? LORY. Like a trout—tickle him. TOM FASHION. I can’t flatter. LORY. Can you starve? TOM FASHION. Yes. LORY. I can’t. Good by t’ye, sir. TOM FASHION. Stay—thou’lt distract me. But who comes here? My old friend, Colonel Townly. _Enter_ COLONEL TOWNLY. My dear Colonel, I am rejoiced to meet you here. COLONEL TOWNLY. Dear Tom, this is an unexpected pleasure! What, are you come to Scarborough to be present at your brother’s wedding? LORY. Ah, sir, if it had been his funeral, we should have come with pleasure. COLONEL TOWNLY. What, honest Lory, are you with your master still? LORY. Yes, sir; I have been starving with him ever since I saw your honour last. TOM FASHION. Why, Lory is an attached rogue; there’s no getting rid of him. LORY. True, sir, as my master says, there’s no seducing me from his service.—[_Aside_.] Till he’s able to pay me my wages. TOM FASHION. Go, go, sir, and take care of the baggage. LORY. Yes, sir, the baggage!—O Lord! [_Takes up the portmanteau_.] I suppose, sir, I must charge the landlord to be very particular where he stows this? TOM FASHION. Get along, you rascal.—[_Exit_ LORY _with the portmanteau_.] But, Colonel, are you acquainted with my proposed sister-in-law? COLONEL TOWNLY. Only by character. Her father, Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, lives within a quarter of a mile of this place, in a lonely old house, which nobody comes near. She never goes abroad, nor sees company at home; to prevent all misfortunes, she has her breeding within doors; the parson of the parish teaches her to play upon the dulcimer, the clerk to sing, her nurse to dress, and her father to dance;—in short, nobody has free admission there but our old acquaintance, Mother Coupler, who has procured your brother this match, and is, I believe, a distant relation of Sir Tunbelly’s. TOM FASHION. But is her fortune so considerable? COLONEL TOWNLY. Three thousand a year, and a good sum of money, independent of her father, beside. TOM FASHION. ’Sdeath! that my old acquaintance, Dame Coupler, could not have thought of me, as well as my brother, for such a prize. COLONEL TOWNLY. Egad, I wouldn’t swear that you are too late. His lordship, I know, hasn’t yet seen the lady—and, I believe, has quarrelled with his patroness. TOM FASHION. My dear Colonel, what an idea have you started! COLONEL TOWNLY. Pursue it, if you can, and I promise you shall have my assistance; for, besides my natural contempt for his lordship, I have at present the enmity of a rival towards him. TOM FASHION. What, has he been addressing your old flame, the widow Berinthia?