_Landlady_. Mrs. Newington, Mr. Newington. _Landlord_ (_drinks_). Mrs. Newington, Mr. Newington drinks your health; for I suppose I must not be landlord any more in my own house (_shrugs_). _Landlady_. Oh, as to that, I have no objections nor impediments to your being called _Landlord_. You look it, and become it very proper. _Landlord_. Why, yes, indeed, thank my tankard, I do look it, and become it, and am nowise ashamed of it; but everyone to their mind, as you, wife, don’t fancy the being called Mrs. Landlady. _Landlady_. To be sure I don’t. Why, when folks hear the old fashioned cry of Mrs. Landlady! Mrs. Landlady! who do they expect, think you, to see, but an overgrown, fat, featherbed of a woman, coming waddling along with her thumbs sticking on each side of her apron, o’ this fashion? Now, to see me coming, nobody would take me to be a landlady. _Landlord_. Very true, indeed, wife—Mrs. Newington, I mean—I ask pardon; but now to go on with what we were saying about the unpossibility of letting that old lady, and the civil-spoken young lady there above, have them there rooms for another day. _Landlady_. Now, Mr. Newington, let me hear no more about that old gentlewoman, and that civil-spoken young lady. Fair words cost nothing; and I’ve a notion that’s the cause they are so plenty with the young lady. Neither o’ them, I take it, by what they’ve ordered since their coming into the house, are such grand folk, that one need be so _petticular_ about them. _Landlord_. Why, they came only in a chaise and pair, to be sure; I can’t deny that. _Landlady_. But, bless my stars! what signifies talking? Don’t you know, as well as I do, Mr. Newington, that to-morrow is Eton Montem, and that if we had twenty times as many rooms and as many more to the back of them, it would not be one too many for all the company we’ve a right to expect, and those the highest quality of the land? Nay, what do I talk of to-morrow? isn’t my Lady Piercefield and suite expected? and, moreover, Mr. and Miss Bursal’s to be here, and will call for as much in an hour as your civil-spoken young lady in a twelvemonth, I reckon. So, Mr. Newington, if you don’t think proper to go up and inform the ladies above, that the Dolphin rooms are not for them, I must _speak_ myself, though ’tis a thing I never do when I can help it. _Landlord_ (_aside_). She not like to speak! (_Aloud_.) My dear, you can speak a power better than I can; so take it all upon yourself, if you please; for, old-fashioned as I and my tankard here be, I can’t make a speech that borders on the uncivil order, to a lady like, for the life and lungs of me. So, in the name of goodness, do you go up, Mrs. Newington. _Landlady_. And so I will, Mr. Newington. Help ye! Civilities and rarities are out o’ season for them that can’t pay for them in this world; and very proper. [_Exit Landlady_.]