_Fos._ This is all we have for the flying dragon so celebrated by antiquity. A cheap purchase! It cost me but fifteen guineas. But the Jew made it up in the butterfly and the spider. Enter two porters bearing a Mummy. Oh! here's my mummy. Set him down. I am in haste. Tell captain Bantam, I'll talk with him at the coffee-house. [_Exit porters._ Enter two porters bearing an Alligator. A most stupendous animal! set him down. [_Exit porters._ Poor lady Hippokekoana's convulsions! I believe there is fatality in it, that I can never get to her. Who can I trust my house to in my absence? Were my wife as chaste as Lucretia, who knows what an unlucky minute may bring forth! In cuckoldom, the art of attack is prodigiously improved beyond the art of defence. So far it is manifest, Underplot has a design upon my honour. For the ease of my mind, I will lock up my wife in this my musæum, 'till my return. Enter TOWNLEY, and SARSNET. You will find something here, my dear, to divert yourself. _Town._ I hate the sight of these strange creatures; but since I am Mr. Fossiles wife, I shall endeavour to conquer my aversion. _Foss._ Thou may'st safely be here to day, my dear; to-morrow thou shouldst no more enter this room than a pest-house. 'Tis dangerous for women that are impregnated. But poor lady Hippokekoana suffers all this while. [_Exit Fossile with a key in his hand._ _Town._ Since he has lock'd me in, to be even with him, I'll bolt him out. [_Plotwell dress'd like a Mummy, comes forward._ _Plot._ Thus trav'ling far from his Egyptian tomb, Thy Anthony salutes his Cleopatra. _Town._ Thus Cleopatra, in desiring arms, Receives her Anthony----But prithee dear pickled Hieroglyphic, who so suddenly could assist thee with this shape. _Plot._ The play-house can dress mummies, bears, lions, crocodiles, and all the monsters of Lybia. My arms madam are ready to break their past-board prison to embrace you. _Town._ Not so hasty. Stay till the jealous fool is out of sight. _Plot._ Our ill stars, and the devil, have brought him back so often _Town._ He can never parry this blow, nor grow jealous of his mummy. A mummy is his intimate friend. _Plot._ And a man cannot easily be cuckolded by any body else. _Town._ Here may'st thou remain the ornament of his study, and the support of his old age. Thou shalt divert his company and be a father to his children. I will bring thee legs of pullets, remnants of tarts, and fragments of desarts. Thou shalt be fed like Bell and the Dragon. _Plot._ But madam; before you entertain me as your mummy in ordinary, you ought to be acquainted with my abilities to discharge that office. Let me slip off this habit of death, you shall find I have some symptoms of life.----Thus Jove within the milk-white swan compress'd his Leda. [_Underplot in the Alligator crawls forward, then rises up and embraces her._] _Underp._