Spruce What a windfall! Wealth comes to you from all sides. Please, let me look over the notes. Beautiful engraving, excellent workmanship. Pretty names. Superb style. Freely negotiable--not like love letters on cheap paper where love distills itself in faded oaths, and idle nonsense. Captain I know their worth better than you. But, just as the money did little for me in the past, I hope, in the future, that it will serve me the same way it does others. Spruce You don't know how luck has favored you. Your brother was just here, and the Squire who loaned you a hundred pounds, suddenly appeared, asking for the money. Your brother, naturally enough, thought the man was insane. But the Squire, tiring of excuses drew his sword on the spot. Your twin didn't care to fight--prudently, in my opinion, for that Squire is the very Devil when his Welsh blood is up. So, your brother gave half of it to the Squire, who took it as a reduction, Captain I am obliged to him for paying my debts. Spruce You don't owe him too much. He's done you a lot of harm with Flavella! Captain (concerned) He's seen her? Spruce Oh, indeed. He's a little brutal. He satirized her and said some things that would put any woman's dander up. And, of course, she took it as coming from you. Flavella left, rather incensed. Captain I've got to undeceive her of this error. But I see her coming. Where are you heading, Madame? Where are you off to? (Enter Flavella) Flavella Someplace you are not. Spruce There's tit for tat. Flavella I am going to Urania's to tell her she may have you. Love her, I consent. I give her to you. I vow, henceforth, to flee you like a monster and never see you more. Captain Madame-- Flavella In return for the most intense love, what do I receive from you? Injury and invective! It seems I appear to you without honor, wit or attraction. Captain Madame, listen to me-- Flavella Never. I don't understand how it is possible to be so brutal or to have the audacity, the cold blood, to say such hard things to my very face. Captain You know that in a public place-- Flavella I don't know a thing. Captain Everything's all right-- Spruce Listen, without so much passion. Flavella Do you intend that I expose myself again to his stupidities? Spruce My Lord, no. You jump to conclusions. In one moment, I am going to dispel all these clouds and prove that you are both wrong (Flavella and the Captain protest) and both right. Flavella Yes, I'm certainly right, as even you, can see. Captain And I am not wrong. Spruce All this little squabbling excites you. In two words it will be all over. The gentleman has said certain harsh words to you? Flavella Past all belief. Captain But I say--