MRS. CROAKER. And pray what right then have you to my good humour? CROAKER. And so your good humour advises me to part with my money? Why, then, to tell your good humour a piece of my mind, I'd sooner part with my wife. Here's Mr. Honeywood, see what he'll say to it. My dear Honeywood, look at this incendiary letter dropped at my door. It will freeze you with terror; and yet lovey here can read it—can read it, and laugh. MRS. CROAKER. Yes, and so will Mr. Honeywood. CROAKER. If he does, I'll suffer to be hanged the next minute in the rogue's place, that's all. MRS. CROAKER. Speak, Mr. Honeywood; is there anything more foolish than my husband's fright upon this occasion? HONEYW. It would not become me to decide, madam; but, doubtless, the greatness of his terrors now will but invite them to renew their villainy another time. MRS. CROAKER. I told you he'd be of my opinion. CROAKER. How, sir! do you maintain that I should lie down under such an injury, and show, neither by my tears nor complaints, that I have something of the spirit of a man in me? HONEYW. Pardon me, sir. You ought to make the loudest complaints if you desire redress. The surest way to have redress, is to be earnest in the pursuit of it. CROAKER. Ay, whose opinion is he of now? MRS. CROAKER. But don't you think that laughing off our fears is the best way? HONEYW. What is the best, madam, few can say; but I'll maintain it to be a very wise way. CROAKER. But we're talking of the best. Surely the best way is to face the enemy in the field, and not wait till he plunders us in our very bed-chamber. HONEYW. Why, sir, as to the best, that—that's a very wise way too. MRS. CROAKER. But can anything be more absurd than to double our distresses by our apprehensions, and put it in the power of every low fellow, that can scrawl ten words of wretched spelling, to torment us? HONEYW. Without doubt, nothing more absurd. CROAKER. How! would it not be more absurd to despise the rattle till we are bit by the snake? HONEYW. Without doubt, perfectly absurd. CROAKER. Then you are of my opinion? HONEYW. Entirely. MRS. CROAKER. And you reject mine? HONEYW. Heavens forbid, madam. No; sure no reasoning can be more just than yours. We ought certainly to despise malice, if we cannot oppose it, and not make the incendiary's pen as fatal to our repose as the highwayman's pistol. MRS. CROAKER. O! then you think I'm quite right? HONEYW. Perfectly right. CROAKER. A plague of plagues, we can't both be right. I ought to be sorry, or I ought to be glad. My hat must be on my head, or my hat must be off. MRS. CROAKER. Certainly; in two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.