_Lau._ [_Shaking her clothes._] O, sir, I am wet quite through my clothes, and am not able to endure it. _Vio._ Was there ever such an insolence? _Mar._ Send in to see who lives there: I'll make an example of them. _Enter_ FRONTONA. _Fab._ Here is the woman of the house herself, sir. _Fron._ Sir, I submit, most willingly, to any punishment you shall inflict upon me: For, though I intended nothing of an affront to these sweet ladies, yet I can never forgive myself the misfortune, of which I was the innocent occasion. _Vio._ O, I am ready to faint away! _Fron._ Alas, poor sweet lady, she's young and tender, sir. I beseech you, give me leave to repair my offence, with offering myself, and poor house, for her accommodation. _Ben._ I know that woman: There's some villanous plot in this, I'll lay my life on't. Now, Benito, cast about for thy credit, and recover all again. _Mar._ Go into the coach, nieces, and bid the coachman drive apace. As for you, mistress, your smooth tongue shall not excuse you. _Lau._ By your favour, sir, I'll accept of the gentlewoman's civility; I cannot stir a step farther. _Fron._ Come in, sweet buds of beauty, you shall have a fire in an inner chamber; and if you please to repose yourself a while, sir, in another room, they shall come out, and wait on you immediately. _Mar._ Well, it must be so. _Fron_. [_Whispering the Ladies._] Your friends are ready in the garden, and will be with you as soon as we have shaken off your uncle. _Ben._ A cheat, a cheat! a rank one! I smell it, old sir, I smell it. _Mar._ What's the matter with the fellow? Is he distracted? _Ben._ No, 'tis you are more likely to be distracted but that there goes some wit to the being mad; and you have not the least grain of wit, to be gulled thus grossly. _Fron._ What does the fellow mean? _Ben._ The fellow means to detect your villany, and to recover his lost reputation of a wit. _Fron._ Why, friend, what villany? I hope my house is a civil house. _Ben._ Yes, a very civil one; for my master lay in of his last clap there, and was treated very civilly, to my knowledge. _Mar._ How's this, how's this? _Fron._ Come, you are a dirty fellow, and I am known to be a person that-- _Ben._ Yes, you are known to be a person that-- _Fron._ Speak your worst of me; what person am I known to be? _Ben._ Why, if you will have it, you are little better than a procuress: You carry messages betwixt party and party:--And, in one word, sir, she's as arrant a fruit-woman as any is about Rome. _Mar._ Nay, if she be a fruit-woman, my nieces shall not enter her doors. _Ben._ You had best let them enter, you do not know how they may fructify in her house: For I heard her, with these ears, whisper to them, that their friends were within call.