Will. Hah—Carlo! Death, what a greeting’s here! Carlo, the happy Man! a
Dog! a Rascal, gain the bright La Nuche! Oh Fortune! Cursed blind
mistaken Fortune! eternal Friend to Fools! Fortune! that takes the
noble Rate from Man, to place it on her Idol Interest.
Shift. Why Faith, Captain, I should think her Heart might stand as fair
for you as any, could you be less satirical—but by this Light, Captain,
you return her Raillery a little too roughly.
Will. Her Raillery! By this Hand I had rather be handsomly abus’d than
dully flatter’d; but when she touches on my Poverty, my honourable
Poverty, she presses me too sensibly—for nothing is so nice as
Poverty—But damn her, I’ll think of her no more: for she’s a Devil, tho
her Form be Angel. Is Beaumond come from Paris yet?
Shift. He is, I came with him; he’s impatient of your Return: I’ll let
him know you’re here. [Exit. _Shift_.
Feth. Why, what a Pox ails the Captain o’th’ sudden? He looks as
sullenly as a routed General, or a Lover after hard Service.
Blunt. Oh—something the Lieutenant has told him about a Wench; and when
_Cupid’s_ in his Breeches, the Devil’s ever in’s Head—how now—What a
pox is the matter with you, you look so scurvily now?—What, is the
Gentlewoman otherwise provided? has she cashier’d ye for want of Pay?
or what other dire Mischance?—hah—
Will. Do not trouble me—
Blunt. Adsheartlikins, but I will, and beat thee too, but I’ll know the
Cause. I heard _Shift_ tell thee something about _La Nuche_, a Damsel I
have often heard thee Fool enough to sigh for.
120
Will. Confound the mercenary Jilt!
Blunt. Nay, adsheartlikins they are all so; tho I thought you had been
Whore-proof; ’tis enough for us Fools, Country Gentlemen, Esquires, and
Cullies, to miscarry in their amorous Adventures, you Men of Wit
weather all Storms you.
Will. Oh, Sir, you’re become a new Man, wise and wary, and can no more
be cozen’d.
Blunt. Not by Woman-kind; and for Man I think my Sword will secure me.
Pox, I thought a two Months absence and a Siege would have put such
Trifles out of thy Head: You do not use to be such a Miracle of
Constancy.
Will. That Absence makes me think of her so much; and all the Passions
thou find’st about me are to the Sex alone. Give me a Woman, Ned, a
fine young amorous Wanton, who would allay this Fire that makes me rave
thus, and thou shouldst find me no longer particular, but cold as
Winter-Nights to this La Nuche: Yet since I lost my little charming
Gipsey, nothing has gone so near my Heart as this.
Blunt. Ay, there was a Girl, the only she thing that could reconcile me
to the Petticoats again after my Naples Adventure, when the Quean rob’d
and stript me.
Will. Oh name not Hellena! She was a Saint to be ador’d on Holy-days.
Enter _Beaumond_.
Beau. Willmore! my careless wild inconstant—how is’t, my lucky Rover?
[embracing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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