_Clar._ Then, my love, you know there is but one day more upon our hands, and that shall be the day of conversation, we'll read verses, talk of books, invent modes, tell lyes, scandalize our friends, be pert upon religion; and in short, employ every moment of it in some pretty witty exercise or other. _Flip._ What order you see 'tis she proposes to live in! A most wonderful regularity! _Gripe._ Regularity with a pox---- [_Aside._ _Clar._ And as this kind of life, so soft, so smooth, so agreeable, must needs invite a vast deal of company to partake of it, 'twill be necessary to have the decency of a porter at our door, you know. _Gripe._ A porter----A scrivener have a porter, Madam! _Clar._ Positively a porter. _Gripe._ Why no scrivener since _Adam_ ever had a porter, woman! _Clar._ You will therefore be renown'd in story, for having the first, my life. _Gripe._ _Flippanta_. _Flip._ Hang it, Sir, never dispute a trifle; if you vex her, perhaps she'll insist upon a Swiss. [_Aside to ~Gripe~._ _Gripe._ But, Madam---- _Clar._ But, Sir, a porter, positively a porter; without that the treaty's null, and I go abroad this moment. _Flip._ Come, Sir, never lose so advantageous a peace for a pitiful porter. _Gripe._ Why, I shall be hooted at, the boys will throw stones at my porter. Besides, where shall I have money for all this expence? _Clar._ My dear, who asks you for any? Don't be in a fright, chicken. _Gripe._ Don't be in a fright, Madam! But where I say---- _Flip._ Madam plays, Sir, think on that; women that play have inexhaustible mines, and wives who receive least money from their husbands, are many times those who spend the most. _Clar._ So, my dear, let what _Flippanta_ says content you. Go, my life, trouble yourself with nothing, but let me do just as I please, and all will be well. I'm going into my closet, to consider of some more things to enable me to give you the pleasure of my company at home, without making it too great a misery to a yielding wife. [_Exit ~Clarissa~._ _Flip._ Mirror of goodness! Pattern to all wives! well sure, Sir, you are the happiest of all husbands. _Gripe._ Yes----and a miserable dog for all that too, perhaps. _Flip._ Why, what can you ask more, than this matchless complaisance? _Gripe._ I don't know what I can ask, and yet I'm not satisfy'd with what I have neither, the devil mixes in it all, I think; complaisant or perverse, it feels just as it did. _Flip._ Why then your uneasiness is only a disease, Sir, perhaps a little bleeding and purging wou'd relieve you. _Clar._ _Flippanta_? [_~Clarissa~ calls within._ _Flip._ Madam calls. I come, Madam. Come, be merry, be merry, Sir, you have cause, take my word for't. Poor devil. [_Aside._]