_Nov._ Faith, to put his play into rhyme; for rhyme, you know, often makes mystical nonsense pass with the critics for wit, and a double-meaning saying with the ladies, for soft, tender, and moving passion. But now I talk of passion, I saw your old lover this morning--Captain--[_Whispers._ _Enter_ MANLY, FREEMAN, _and_ FIDELIA _standing behind._ _Oliv._ Whom?--nay, you need not whisper. _Man._ We are luckily got hither unobserved!--How! in a close conversation with these supple rascals, the outcasts of sempstresses' shops! _Free._ Faith, pardon her, captain, that, since she could no longer be entertained with your manly bluntness and honest love, she takes up with the pert chat and commonplace flattery of these fluttering parrots of the town, apes and echoes of men only. _Man._ Do not you, sir, play the echo too, mock me, dally with my own words, and show yourself as impertinent as they are. _Free._ Nay, captain-- _Fid._ Nay, lieutenant, do not excuse her; methinks she looks very kindly upon 'em both, and seems to be pleased with what that fool there says to her. _Man._ You lie, sir! and hold your peace, that I may not be provoked to give you a worse reply. _Oliv._ Manly returned, d'ye say! and is he safe? _Nov._ My lord saw him too.--Hark you, my lord. [_Whispers to_ Lord PLAUSIBLE. _Man._ She yet seems concerned for my safety, and perhaps they are admitted now here but for their news of me: for intelligence indeed is the common passport of nauseous fools, when they go their round of good tables and houses. [_Aside._ _Oliv._ I heard of his fighting only, without particulars, and confess I always loved his brutal courage, because it made me hope it might rid me of his more brutal love. _Man._ What's that? [_Aside._ _Oliv._ But is he at last returned, d'ye say, unhurt? _Nov._ Ay, faith, without doing his business; for the rogue has been these two years pretending to a wooden leg, which he would take from fortune as kindly as the staff of a marshal of France, and rather read his name in a gazette-- _Oliv._ Than in the entail of a good estate. _Man._ So! [_Aside._ _Nov._ I have an ambition, I must confess, of losing my heart before such a fair enemy us yourself, madam; but that silly rogues should be ambitious of losing their arms, and-- _Oliv._ Looking like a pair of compasses. _Nov._ But he has no use of his arms but to set 'em on kimbow, for he never pulls off his hat, at least not to me, I'm sure; for you must know, madam, he has a fanatical hatred to good company: he can't abide me. _L. Plau._ O, be not so severe to him, as to say he hates good company: for I assure you he has a great respect, esteem and kindness for me. _Man._ That kind, civil rogue has spoken yet ten thousand times worse of me than t'other. [_Aside._