_Pereg._ Come on, friend.--It seems a dreary rout: but how cheerily the eye glances over a sterile tract, when the habitation of a benefactor, whom we are approaching to requite, lies in the perspective! [_Exeunt._ * * * * * ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I. _A Library in the House of SIR SIMON ROCHDALE; Books scattered on a Writing Table._ _Enter TOM SHUFFLETON._ _Shuff._ No body up yet? I thought so. _Enter SERVANT._ Ah, John, is it you? How d'ye do, John? _John._ Thank your honour, I---- _Shuff._ Yes, you look so. Sir Simon Rochdale in bed? Mr. Rochdale not risen? Well! no matter; I have travelled all night, though, to be with them. How are they? _John._ Sir, they are both---- _Shuff._ I'm glad to hear it. Pay the postboy for me. _John._ Yes, sir. I beg pardon, sir; but when your honour last left us---- _Shuff._ Owed you three pound five. I remember: have you down in my memorandums--Honourable Tom Shuffleton debtor to---- What's your name? _John._ My christian name, sir, is---- _Shuff._ Muggins--I recollect. Pay the postboy, Muggins. And, harkye, take particular care of the chaise: I borrowed it of my friend, Bobby Fungus, who sprang up a peer, in the last bundle of Barons: if a single knob is knocked out of his new coronets, he'll make me a sharper speech than ever he'll produce in parliament. And, John! _John._ Sir! _Shuff._ What was I going to say? _John._ Indeed, sir, I can't tell. _Shuff._ No more can I. 'Tis the fashion to be absent--that's the way I forgot your little bill. There, run along. [_Exit JOHN._] I've the whirl of Bobby's chaise in my head still. Cursed fatiguing, posting all night, through Cornish roads, to obey the summons of friendship! Convenient, in some respects, for all that. If all loungers, of slender revenues, like mine, could command a constant succession of invitations, from men of estates in the country, how amazingly it would tend to the thinning of Bond Street! [_Throws himself into a Chair near the Writing Table._] Let me see--what has Sir Simon been reading?--"Burn's Justice"--true; the old man's reckoned the ablest magistrate in the county. he hasn't cut open the leaves, I see. "Chesterfield's Letters"--pooh! his system of education is extinct: Belcher and the Butcher have superseded it. "Clarendon's History of----." _Enter SIR SIMON ROCHDALE._ _Sir Simon._ Ah, my dear Tom Shuffleton! _Shuff._ Baronet! how are you? _Sir Simon._ Such expedition is kind now! You got my letter at Bath, and---- _Shuff._ Saw it was pressing:--here I am. Cut all my engagements for you, and came off like a shot. _Sir Simon._ Thank you: thank you, heartily! _Shuff._ Left every thing at sixes and sevens. _Sir Simon._ Gad, I'm sorry if---- _Shuff._ Don't apologize;--nobody does, now. Left all my bills, in the place, unpaid. _Sir Simon._ Bless me! I've made it monstrous inconvenient!