_Mrs. Pinch._ Nay, I confess I was quiet enough till my husband told me what pure lives the London ladies live abroad, with their dancing, meetings, and junketings, and dressed every day in their best gowns; and I warrant you, play at nine-pins every day of the week, so they do. _Enter_ PINCHWIFE. _Pinch._ Come, what's here to do? you are putting the town-pleasures in her head, and setting her a-longing. _Alith._ Yes, after nine-pins. You suffer none to give her those longings you mean but yourself. _Pinch._ I tell her of the vanities of the town like a confessor. _Alith._ A confessor! just such a confessor as he that, by forbidding a silly ostler to grease the horse's teeth, taught him to do't. _Pinch._ Come, Mrs. Flippant, good precepts are lost when bad examples are still before us: the liberty you take abroad makes her hanker after it, and out of humour at home. Poor wretch! she desired not to come to London; I would bring her. _Alith._ Very well. _Pinch._ She has been this week in town, and never desired till this afternoon to go abroad. _Alith._ Was she not at a play yesterday? _Pinch._ Yes; but she ne'er asked me; I was myself the cause of her going. _Alith._ Then if she ask you again, you are the cause of her asking, and not my example. _Pinch._ Well, to-morrow night I shall be rid of you; and the next day, before 'tis light, she and I'll be rid of the town, and my dreadful apprehensions.--Come, be not melancholy; for thou sha't go into the country after to-morrow, dearest. _Alith._ Great comfort! _Mrs. Pinch._ Pish! what d'ye tell me of the country for? _Pinch._ How's this! what, pish at the country? _Mrs. Pinch._ Let me alone; I am not well. _Pinch._ O, if that be all--what ails my dearest? _Mrs. Pinch._ Truly, I don't know: but I have not been well since you told me there was a gallant at the play in love with me. _Pinch._ Ha!-- _Alith._ That's by my example too! _Pinch._ Nay, if you are not well, but are so concerned, because a lewd fellow chanced to lie, and say he liked you, you'll make me sick too. _Mrs. Pinch._ Of what sickness? _Pinch._ O, of that which is worse than the plague, jealousy. _Mrs. Pinch._ Pish, you jeer! I'm sure there's no such disease in our receipt-book at home. _Pinch._ No, thou never met'st with it, poor innocent.--Well, if thou cuckold me, 'twill be my own fault--for cuckolds and bastards are generally makers of their own fortune. [_Aside._ _Mrs. Pinch._ Well, but pray, bud, let's go to a play to-night. _Pinch._ 'Tis just done, she comes from it. But why are you so eager to see a play? _Mrs. Pinch._ Faith, dear, not that I care one pin for their talk there; but I like to look upon the player-men, and would see, if I could, the gallant you say loves me: that's all, dear bud. _Pinch._ Is that all, dear bud? _Alith._ This proceeds from my example! _Mrs. Pinch._ But if the play be done, let's go abroad, however, dear bud.