CUTLET (_Throwing down the book._) Why was I bred to this detestable business? Was it not plain, that this trembling sensibility, which has marked my character from earliest infancy, must for ever disqualify me for a profession which--what do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only somebody going past. I thought it had been a customer.--Why was not I bred a glover, like my cousin Langston? to see him poke his two little sticks into a delicate pair of real Woodstock--"A very little stretching ma'am, and they will fit exactly"--Or a haberdasher, like my next-door neighbour--"not a better bit of lace in all town, my lady--Mrs. Breakstock took the last of it last Friday, all but this bit, which I can afford to let your ladyship have a bargain--reach down that drawer on your left hand, Miss Fisher." (_Enter in haste, Davenport, Marian, and Lucy._) LUCY This is the house I saw a bill up at, ma'am; and a droll creature the landlord is. DAVENPORT We have no time for nicety. CUTLET What do ye want? what do ye buy? O, it is only you, Mrs. Lucy. _Lucy whispers Cutlet._ CUTLET I have a set of apartments at the end of my garden. They are quite detached from the shop. A single lady at present occupies the ground floor. MARIAN Aye, aye, any where. DAVENPORT In, in.-- CUTLET Pretty lamb,--she seems agitated. _Davenport and Marian go in with Cutlet._ LUCY I am mistaken if my young lady does not find an agreeable companion in these apartments. Almost a namesake. Only the difference of Flyn, and Flint. I have some errands to do, or I would stop and have some fun with this droll butcher. _Cutlet returns._ CUTLET Why, how odd this is! _Your_ young lady knows _my_ young lady. They are as thick as flies. LUCY You may thank me for your new lodger, Mr. Cutlet.--But bless me, you do not look well? CUTLET To tell you the truth, I am rather heavy about the eyes. Want of sleep, I believe. LUCY Late hours, perhaps. Raking last night. CUTLET No, that is not it, Mrs. Lucy. My repose was disturbed by a very different cause from what you may imagine. It proceeded from too much thinking. LUCY The deuce it did! and what, if I may be so bold, might be the subject of your Night Thoughts? CUTLET The distresses of my fellow creatures. I never lay my head down on my pillow, but I fall a thinking, how many at this very instant are perishing. Some with cold-- LUCY What, in the midst of summer? CUTLET Aye. Not here, but in countries abroad, where the climate is different from ours. Our summers are their winters, and _vice versâ_, you know. Some with cold-- LUCY What a canting rogue it is! I should like to trump up some fine story to plague him. [_Aside._] CUTLET Others with hunger--some a prey to the rage of wild beasts-- LUCY He has got this by rote, out of some book. CUTLET Some drowning, crossing crazy bridges in the dark--some by the violence of the devouring flame--