HARDCASTLE. There are a set of prints, too. What think you of the Rake’s Progress, for your own apartment? MARLOW. Bring me your bill, I say; and I’ll leave you and your infernal house directly. HARDCASTLE. Then there’s a mahogany table that you may see your own face in. MARLOW. My bill, I say. HARDCASTLE. I had forgot the great chair for your own particular slumbers, after a hearty meal. MARLOW. Zounds! bring me my bill, I say, and let’s hear no more on’t. HARDCASTLE. Young man, young man, from your father’s letter to me, I was taught to expect a well-bred modest man as a visitor here, but now I find him no better than a coxcomb and a bully; but he will be down here presently, and shall hear more of it. [Exit.] MARLOW. How’s this? Sure I have not mistaken the house. Everything looks like an inn. The servants cry, coming; the attendance is awkward; the bar-maid, too, to attend us. But she’s here, and will further inform me. Whither so fast, child? A word with you. Enter MISS HARDCASTLE. MISS HARDCASTLE. Let it be short, then. I’m in a hurry. (Aside.) I believe he begins to find out his mistake. But it’s too soon quite to undeceive him. MARLOW. Pray, child, answer me one question. What are you, and what may your business in this house be? MISS HARDCASTLE. A relation of the family, sir. MARLOW. What, a poor relation. MISS HARDCASTLE. Yes, sir. A poor relation, appointed to keep the keys, and to see that the guests want nothing in my power to give them. MARLOW. That is, you act as the bar-maid of this inn. MISS HARDCASTLE. Inn! O law----what brought that in your head? One of the best families in the country keep an inn--Ha! ha! ha! old Mr. Hardcastle’s house an inn! MARLOW. Mr. Hardcastle’s house! Is this Mr. Hardcastle’s house, child? MISS HARDCASTLE. Ay, sure! Whose else should it be? MARLOW. So then, all’s out, and I have been damnably imposed on. O, confound my stupid head, I shall be laughed at over the whole town. I shall be stuck up in caricatura in all the print-shops. The DULLISSIMO MACCARONI. To mistake this house of all others for an inn, and my father’s old friend for an innkeeper! What a swaggering puppy must he take me for! What a silly puppy do I find myself! There again, may I be hanged, my dear, but I mistook you for the bar-maid. MISS HARDCASTLE. Dear me! dear me! I’m sure there’s nothing in my BEHAVIOUR to put me on a level with one of that stamp. MARLOW. Nothing, my dear, nothing. But I was in for a list of blunders, and could not help making you a subscriber. My stupidity saw everything the wrong way. I mistook your assiduity for assurance, and your simplicity for allurement. But it’s over. This house I no more show MY face in.