[Lady FLIPPANT _comes forward, driving_ DAPPERWIT _from one side of the stage to the other._ _L. Flip._ Dear Mr. Dapperwit! merciful Mr. Dapperwit! _Dap._ Unmerciful Lady Flippant! _L. Flip._ Will you be satisfied? _Dap._ Won't you be satisfied? _L. Flip._ That a wit should be jealous; that a wit should be jealous! there's never a brisk young fellow in the town, though no wit, Heaven knows, but thinks too well of himself, to think ill of his wife or mistress. Now, that a wit should lessen his opinion of himself;--for shame! _Dap._ I promised to bring you off, but I find it enough to shift for myself--[_Softly, apart to_ RANGER. _Lyd._ What! out of breath, madam! _L. Flip._ I have been defending our cause, madam; I have beat him out of the pit. I do so mumble these prating, censorious fellows they call wits, when I meet with them. _Dap._ Her ladyship, indeed, is the only thing in petticoats I dread. 'Twas well for me there was company in the room; for I dare no more venture myself with her alone, than a cully that has been bit dares venture himself in a tavern with an old rook. _L. Flip._ I am the revenger of our sex, certainly. _Dap._ And the most insatiable one I ever knew, madam; I dare not stand your fury longer.--Mr. Ranger, I will go before and make a new appointment with your friends that expect you at dinner at the French-house; 'tis fit business still wait on love. _Ran._ Do so--but now I think on't, Sir Thomas goes out of town this afternoon, and I shall not see him here again these three months. _Lyd._ Nay, pray take him with you, sir. _L. Flip._ No, sir, you shall not take the gentleman from his mistress.--[_Aside to_ DAPPERWIT.] Do not go yet, sweet Mr. Dapperwit. _Lyd._ Take him with you, sir; I suppose his business may be there to borrow or win money, and I ought not to be his hindrance: for when he has none, he has his desperate designs upon that little I have;--for want of money makes as devout lovers as Christians. _Dap._ I hope, madam, he offers you no less security than his liberty. _Lyd._ His liberty is as poor a pawn to take up money on as honour. He is like the desperate bankrupts of this age, who, if they can get people's fortunes into their hands, care not though they spend them in jail all their lives. _L. Flip._ And the poor crediting ladies, when they have parted with their money, must be contented with a pitiful composition, or starve, for all them. _Ran._ But widows are commonly so wise as to be sure their men are solvable before they trust 'em. _L. Flip._ Can you blame 'em! I declare I will trust no man. Pray, do not take it ill, gentlemen: quacks in their bills, and poets in the titles of their plays, do not more disappoint us, than gallants with their promises; but I trust none. _Dap._ Nay, she's a very Jew in that particular. To my knowledge, she'll know her man, over and over again, before she trust him.