Oh, yes! And, no doubt, every quibble that it offers will be twisted to the best purpose for your interest. You’re a dabster at chicane, or you’re preciously belied. HERMAN. You will not, I presume, dispute the signature of the individual who formed the contract? KNICKERBOCKER. Oh, no! not dispute Rip’s signature, but his error in judgement. I happened to be a cabinet councillor at the very moment my deceased relative, who was _non compos mentis_, at the time, clapped his pen to a writing, artfully extracted from him by your defunct father, whose memory is better forgotten than remembered. HERMAN. Sir, I came here, not to meet insult; I came hither, persuaded you would acknowledge my right, and to prevent a publicity that may be painful to both parties. You are inclined to dispute them; before a tribunal shall they be arbitrated; and, knowing my claims, Mr. Knickerbocker, know well that Lorrenna or her fortune must be mine. [_Exit._ KNICKERBOCKER. You go to Davy Jones, as the seamen have it. Lorrenna shall never be yours, and if ever she wants a cent whilst I have one, my name isn’t Knickerbocker;—damme, as the dandies have it. LORRENNA _enters, with_ ALICE. LORRENNA. My dear guardian, you have got rid of Herman, I perceive. KNICKERBOCKER. I wish I had, with all my soul; but he sticks to his rascally undertaking like a crab to its shell; egad, there will be no dislodging him unless he’s clapped into a cauldron of boiling water, as fishmongers have it. ALICE. And boiled to rags. But, husband! husband, I say! KNICKERBOCKER. Mr. Knickerbocker, my dear, if you please. ALICE. Well, then, Mr. Knickerbocker, my dear, if you please, we have been looking out at the window to ascertain who came and went, and have discovered a fine, handsome fellow galloping towards the town, and I shouldn’t at all wonder if it wasn’t— GUSTAFFE _rushes in._ LORRENNA. [_Hurries to him._] My dear, dear Gustaffe! GUSTAFFE. [_Embracing her._] My tender, charming Lorrenna! KNICKERBOCKER. Why, Gustaffe! Bless us! why, how the spark has grown. ALICE. Not quite so corpulent as you, spouse. KNICKERBOCKER. Spouse! Mr. Knickerbocker, if you please. Truly, wife, we have both increased somewhat in corporal, as well as temporal substance, since Gustaffe went to sea. But you know, Alice— ALICE. Mrs. Knickerbocker, if you please. KNICKERBOCKER. Well, Mrs. Knickerbocker— GUSTAFFE. Why, Knickerbocker, you have thriven well of late. KNICKERBOCKER. I belong to the corporation, and we must support our corporation as well as it. But not a word about the pig, as the butchers have it, when you were a little boy, and Alice courting me. ALICE. I court you, sirrah? what mean you? KNICKERBOCKER.