_L. Dunce._ There lies the greatest comfort of my uneasy life; he is one of those fools, forsooth, that are led by the nose by knaves to rail against the king and the government, and is mightily fond of being thought of a party. I have had hopes this twelve-month to have heard of his being in the Gatehouse[33] for treason. _Sylv._ But I find only yourself the prisoner all this while. _L. Dunce._ At present indeed I am so; but fortune I hope will smile, wouldst thou but be my friend, Sylvia. _Sylv._ In any mischievous design, with all my heart. _L. Dunce._ The conclusion, madam, may turn to your satisfaction. But you have no thoughts of Courtine? _Sylv._ Not I, I'll assure you, cousin. _L. Dunce._ You don't think him well shaped, straight, and proportionable? _Sylv._ Considering he eats but once a week, the man is well enough. _L. Dunce._ And then he wears his clothes, you know, filthily, and like a horrid sloven. _Sylv._ Filthily enough of all conscience, with a threadbare red coat, which his tailor duns him for to this day, over which a great, broad, greasy, buff-belt, enough to turn any one's stomach but a disbanded soldier; a peruke tied up in a knot, to excuse its want of combing; and then, because he has been a man at arms, he must wear two tuffles of a beard, forsooth, to lodge a dunghill of snuff upon, to keep his nose in good humour. _L. Dunce._ Nay, now I am sure that thou lovest him. _Sylv._ So far from it, that I protest eternally against the whole sex. _L. Dunce._ That time will best demonstrate; in the mean while to our business. _Sylv._ As how, madam? _L. Dunce._ To-night must I see Beaugard; they are this minute at dinner in the Haymarket; now to make my evil genius, that haunts me everywhere, my thing called a husband, himself to assist his poor wife at a dead lift, I think would not be unpleasant. _Sylv._ But 'twill be impossible. _L. Dunce._ I am apt to be persuaded rather very easy. You know our good and friendly neighbour, Sir Jolly. _Sylv._ Out on him, beast! he's always talking filthily to a body; if he sits but at the table with one, he'll be making nasty figures in the napkins. _L. Dunce._ He and my sweet yoke-fellow are the most intimate friends in the world; so that partly out of neighbourly kindness, as well as the great delight he takes to be meddling in matters of this nature, with a great deal of pains and industry he has procured me Beaugard's picture, and given him to understand how well a friend of his in petticoats, called myself, wishes him. _Sylv._ But what's all this to the making the husband instrumental? for I must confess, of all creatures, a husband's the thing that's odious to me.