Bless my soul! Falkner alive? show the gentleman up. _Will._ He's here, sir. _Enter_ Falkner. _Falk._ My old friend, I rejoice to see you. _Sir W._ Friend Falkner, I shan't attempt to say how welcome your return is. We all thought you dead and buried. Where have you been all these years? _Falk._ A wanderer. Let that suffice. _Sir W._ I see you still retain your old antipathy to answering questions, so I shall ask none--Have you been in France, or among the savages? Hey! I remember you had a daughter at school--is she alive? is she merry or miserable? Is she married? _Falk._ Zounds what a medley! France and savages! marriage and misery! _Sir W._ Ods life, I'm happy to see you! I haven't been so cheerful or happy for many a day. _Falk._ How's your wife? _Sir W._ Hey! thank ye, sir! why that excellent good woman is in high health, in astonishing health! by my troth I speak it with unspeakable joy, I think she's a better life now than she was when I married her! (_in a melancholy tone._) _Falk._ That must be a source of _vast comfort_ to you. I don't wonder at your being so cheerful and happy. _Sir W._ True--but it isn't _that_--that is, not altogether so: no, 'tis that I once more hold my friend Falkner by the hand, and that my daughter--you remember your little favourite Helen-- _Falkner._ I do indeed! _Sir W._ You are arrived at a critical moment: I mean shortly to marry her-- _Falkner._ I forbid the banns! _Sir W._ The devil you do! _Falkner._ Pshaw! (_aside_) my feelings o'erstep my discretion. Take care what you're about--If you're an honest man, you'd rather see her dead than married to a villain. _Sir W._ To be sure I would; but the man I mean her to marry-- _Falkner._ Perhaps will never be her husband. _Sir W._ The devil he wont! why not? _Falkner._ Talk of something else--you know I was always an eccentric being-- _Sir W._ What the devil does he mean? yes, yes you was always eccentric; but do you know-- _Falkner._ I know more than I wish to know; I've lived long enough in the world to know that roguery fattens on the same soil where honesty starves; and I care little whether time adds to information which opens to me more and more the depravity of human nature. _Sir W._ Why, Falkner, you are grown more a misanthrope than ever. _Falkner._ You know well enough I have had my vexations in life; in an early stage of it I married-- _Sir W._ Every man has his trials! _Falkner._ About two years afterwards I lost my wife. _Sir W._ That was a heavy misfortune! however you bore it with fortitude. _Falkner._ I bore it easily; my wife was a woman without feelings: she had not energy for great virtue, and she had no vice, because she had no passion: life with her was a state of stagnation. _Sir W._ How different are the fates of men!