PET. Sir, I presume upon the information of your boots. SIR WIL. Why, ’tis like you may, sir: if you are not satisfied with the information of my boots, sir, if you will step to the stable, you may enquire further of my horse, sir. PET. Your horse, sir! Your horse is an ass, sir! SIR WIL. Do you speak by way of offence, sir? MRS. MAR. The gentleman’s merry, that’s all, sir. ’Slife, we shall have a quarrel betwixt an horse and an ass, before they find one another out.—You must not take anything amiss from your friends, sir. You are among your friends here, though it—may be you don’t know it. If I am not mistaken, you are Sir Wilfull Witwoud? SIR WIL. Right, lady; I am Sir Wilfull Witwoud, so I write myself; no offence to anybody, I hope? and nephew to the Lady Wishfort of this mansion. MRS. MAR. Don’t you know this gentleman, sir? SIR WIL. Hum! What, sure ’tis not—yea by’r lady but ’tis—’sheart, I know not whether ’tis or no. Yea, but ’tis, by the Wrekin. Brother Antony! What, Tony, i’faith! What, dost thou not know me? By’r lady, nor I thee, thou art so becravated and so beperiwigged. ’Sheart, why dost not speak? Art thou o’erjoyed? WIT. Odso, brother, is it you? Your servant, brother. SIR WIL. Your servant? Why, yours, sir. Your servant again—’sheart, and your friend and servant to that—and a—[_puff_] and a flap-dragon for your service, sir, and a hare’s foot and a hare’s scut for your service, sir, an you be so cold and so courtly! WIT. No offence, I hope, brother? SIR WIL. ’Sheart, sir, but there is, and much offence. A pox, is this your inns o’ court breeding, not to know your friends and your relations, your elders, and your betters? WIT. Why, brother Wilfull of Salop, you may be as short as a Shrewsbury cake, if you please. But I tell you ’tis not modish to know relations in town. You think you’re in the country, where great lubberly brothers slabber and kiss one another when they meet, like a call of sergeants. ’Tis not the fashion here; ’tis not, indeed, dear brother. SIR WIL. The fashion’s a fool and you’re a fop, dear brother. ’Sheart, I’ve suspected this—by’r lady I conjectured you were a fop, since you began to change the style of your letters, and write in a scrap of paper gilt round the edges, no bigger than a subpoena. I might expect this when you left off ‘Honoured brother,’ and ‘Hoping you are in good health,’ and so forth, to begin with a ‘Rat me, knight, I’m so sick of a last night’s debauch.’ Ods heart, and then tell a familiar tale of a cock and a bull, and a whore and a bottle, and so conclude. You could write news before you were out of your time, when you lived with honest Pumple-Nose, the attorney of Furnival’s Inn. You could intreat to be remembered then to your friends round the Wrekin. We could have Gazettes then, and Dawks’s Letter, and the Weekly Bill, till of late days.