“He is a most petrifying wretch, I assure you,” said the Captain; “I am _obsede_ by him _partout_; if I had known he had been so near, I should certainly have said nothing.” “That you have done so well,” cried Mr Gosport, “that if you had known it the whole time, you could have done it no better.” The Captain, who had not heard this speech, which was rather made at him than to him, continued his address to Cecilia; “Give me leave to have the honour of hoping you intend to honour our select masquerade at the Pantheon with your presence. We shall have but five hundred tickets, and the subscription will only be three guineas and a half.” “Oh objects of penury and want!” again exclaimed the incognito; “Oh vassals of famine and distress! Come and listen to this wantonness of wealth! Come, naked and breadless as ye are, and learn how that money is consumed which to you might bring raiment and food!” “That strange wretch,” said the Captain, “ought really to be confined; I have had the honour to be _degoute_ by him so often, that I think him quite obnoxious. I make it quite a principle to seal up my lips the moment I perceive him.” “Where is it, then,” said Cecilia, “that you have so often met him?” “O,” answered the Captain, “_partout_; there is no greater bore about town. But the time I found him most petrifying was once when I happened to have the honour of dancing with a very young lady, who was but just come from a boarding-school, and whose friends had done me the honour to fix upon me upon the principle of first bringing her out: and while I was doing _mon possible_ for killing the time, he came up, and in his particular manner, told her I had no meaning in any thing I said! I must own I never felt more tempted to be _enrage_ with a person in years, in my life.” Mr Arnott now brought the ladies word that their carriage was ready, and they quitted their box: but as Cecilia had never before seen the interior parts of a theatre, Mr Monckton, hoping while they loitered to have an opportunity of talking with her, asked Morrice why he did not _shew the lions?_ Morrice, always happy in being employed, declared it was _just the thing he liked best_, and begged permission to do the honours to Mrs Harrel, who, ever eager in the search of amusement, willingly accepted his offer. They all, therefore, marched upon the stage, their own party now being the only one that remained. “We shall make a triumphal entry here,” cried Sir Robert Floyer; “the very tread of the stage half tempts me to turn actor.” “You are a rare man,” said Mr Gosport, “if, at your time of life, that is a turn not already taken.” “My time of life!” repeated he; “what do you mean by that? do you take me for an old man?” “No, sir, but I take you to be past childhood, and consequently to have served your apprenticeship to the actors you have mixed with on the great stage of the world, and, for some years at least, to have set up for yourself.”