_Vict._ Never let him have one; 'twill make him like himself, and think of making advances elsewhere: You'd better have him a booby.--How could I think of the old fellow for you! Look you, Pen, old age has its infirmities, and 'tis a sad prospect for an honest young woman to be sure of being a nurse, and never of being a mother. _Pen._ Oh, that I had but your prudence! But, my dear, I have a request to make to you, and that is that you would write him an assignation this evening in the Park. I'll obey the appointment, and converse with him under that disguise; for the old people will clap up a match before I know anything of the real man. And if one don't know one's husband, how can one manage him--that is to say, obey him? _Vict._ Oh! pray, my dear, do you think I don't understand you? Oh! and there's another thing--a scholar makes the best husband in the world. _Pen._ Because they are the most knowing? _Vict._ No, because they are the least knowing.--But I'll go immediately and obey your commands. I wish you heartily well, my dear, in this matter. [_Kissing her._ _Pen._ I thank you, dearest; I don't doubt it indeed. _Vict._ Where are you going now, my dear? O fie! this is not like a friend--Do I use you so, dear madam? _Pen._ Nay, indeed, madam, I must wait on you. _Vict._ Indeed you shan't--indeed you shan't. [PEN. _follows_ VICT. _Pen._ Well, madam, will you promise, then, to be as free with me?--Thus does she hope to work me out of my lover, by being made my confident--but that baseness has been too fashionable to pass any more. I have not trusted her, the cunning creature. I begin to hate her so--I'll never be a minute from her. [_Exit._ SCENE II.--_Covent Garden._ _Enter_ OLD BOOKWIT, YOUNG BOOKWIT, _and_ LATINE. _O. Book._ Well, Tom, where have you sauntered about since I saw you? Is not the town mightily increased since you were in it? _Y. Book._ Ay, indeed, I need not have been so impatient to have left Oxford. Had I stayed a year longer, they had builded to me. _O. Book._ But I don't observe you affected much with the alterations. Where have you been? _Y. Book._ No, faith, the New Exchange[60] has taken up all my curiosity. _O. Book._ Oh! but, son, you must not go to places to stare at women! Did you buy anything? _Y. Book._ Some baubles. But my choice was so distracted among the pretty merchants and their dealers, I knew not where to run first. One little, lisping rogue--"Ribbandths, gloveths, tippeths"--"Sir," cries another, "will you buy a fine sword-knot?" Then a third pretty voice and curtsey--"Does not your lady want hoods, scarfs, fine green silk stockings?"[61] I went by as if I had been in a seraglio, a living gallery of beauties, staring from side to side--I bowing, they laughing--so made my escape, and brought your son and heir safe to you, through all these darts and glances, to which indeed my breast is not impregnable. But I wonder whence I had this amorous inclination?