MRS. FAIN. Fie, fie, have him, and tell him so in plain terms: for I am sure you have a mind to him. MILLA. Are you? I think I have; and the horrid man looks as if he thought so too. Well, you ridiculous thing you, I’ll have you. I won’t be kissed, nor I won’t be thanked.—Here, kiss my hand though, so hold your tongue now; don’t say a word. MRS. FAIN. Mirabell, there’s a necessity for your obedience: you have neither time to talk nor stay. My mother is coming; and in my conscience if she should see you, would fall into fits, and maybe not recover time enough to return to Sir Rowland, who, as Foible tells me, is in a fair way to succeed. Therefore spare your ecstasies for another occasion, and slip down the back stairs, where Foible waits to consult you. MILLA. Ay, go, go. In the meantime I suppose you have said something to please me. MIRA. I am all obedience. SCENE VII. MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS. FAINALL. MRS. FAIN. Yonder Sir Wilfull’s drunk, and so noisy that my mother has been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know not, but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by. MILLA. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing: for I find I love him violently. MRS. FAIN. So it seems; for you mind not what’s said to you. If you doubt him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull. MILLA. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh! SCENE VIII. [_To them_] WITWOUD _from drinking_. MRS. FAIN. So, is the fray made up that you have left ’em? WIT. Left ’em? I could stay no longer. I have laughed like ten Christ’nings. I am tipsy with laughing—if I had stayed any longer I should have burst,—I must have been let out and pieced in the sides like an unsized camlet. Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like a _noli prosequi_, and stopt the proceedings. MILLA. What was the dispute? WIT. That’s the jest: there was no dispute. They could neither of ’em speak for rage; and so fell a sputt’ring at one another like two roasting apples. SCENE IX. [_To them_] PETULANT _drunk_. WIT. Now, Petulant? All’s over, all’s well? Gad, my head begins to whim it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish. PET. Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear Nymph, say it, and that’s the conclusion—pass on, or pass off—that’s all. WIT. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomiser of words. PET. Witwoud,—you are an annihilator of sense. WIT. Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.