BUCK. O Lord, let me begone: I'll not venture myself with a madman.

SCENE X.

SIR SAMPSON, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY.

VAL. Ha, ha, ha; you need not run so fast, honesty will not overtake you. Ha, ha, ha, the rogue found me out to be in forma pauperis presently.

SIR SAMP. Oons! What a vexation is here! I know not what to do, or say, nor which way to go.

VAL. Who's that that's out of his way? I am Truth, and can set him right. Harkee, friend, the straight road is the worst way you can go. He that follows his nose always, will very often be led into a stink. Probatum est. But what are you for? religion or politics?

There's a couple of topics for you, no more like one another than oil and vinegar; and yet those two, beaten together by a state-cook, make sauce for the whole nation.

SIR SAMP. What the devil had I to do, ever to beget sons? Why did I ever marry?

VAL. Because thou wert a monster, old boy! The two greatest monsters in the world are a man and a woman! What's thy opinion?

SIR SAMP. Why, my opinion is, that those two monsters joined together, make yet a greater, that's a man and his wife.

VAL. Aha! Old True-penny, say'st thou so? Thou hast nicked it.

But it's wonderful strange, Jeremy.

JERE. What is, sir?

VAL. That gray hairs should cover a green head--and I make a fool of my father. What's here! Erra Pater: or a bearded sibyl? If Prophecy comes, Truth must give place.

SCENE XI.

SIR SAMPSON, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MISS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL.

FORE. What says he? What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us! How are we?

SIR SAMP. Are we? A pox o' your prognostication. Why, we are fools as we use to be. Oons, that you could not foresee that the moon would predominate, and my son be mad. Where's your oppositions, your trines, and your quadrates? What did your Cardan and your Ptolemy tell you? Your Messahalah and your Longomonta.n.u.s, your harmony of chiromancy with astrology. Ah! pox on't, that I that know the world and men and manners, that don't believe a syllable in the sky and stars, and sun and almanacs and trash, should be directed by a dreamer, an omen-hunter, and defer business in expectation of a lucky hour, when, body o' me, there never was a lucky hour after the first opportunity.

SCENE XII.

SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MRS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL.

FORE. Ah, Sir Sampson, heav'n help your head. This is none of your lucky hour; Nemo omnibus horis sapit. What, is he gone, and in contempt of science? Ill stars and unconvertible ignorance attend him.

SCAN. You must excuse his pa.s.sion, Mr Foresight, for he has been heartily vexed. His son is non compos mentis, and thereby incapable of making any conveyance in law; so that all his measures are disappointed.

FORE. Ha! say you so?

MRS FRAIL. What, has my sea-lover lost his anchor of hope, then?

[Aside to MRS FORESIGHT.]

MRS FORE. O sister, what will you do with him?

MRS FRAIL. Do with him? Send him to sea again in the next foul weather. He's used to an inconstant element, and won't be surprised to see the tide turned.

FORE. Wherein was I mistaken, not to foresee this? [Considers.]

SCAN. Madam, you and I can tell him something else that he did not foresee, and more particularly relating to his own fortune. [Aside to MRS FORESIGHT.]

MRS FORE. What do you mean? I don't understand you.

SCAN. Hush, softly,--the pleasures of last night, my dear, too considerable to be forgot so soon.

MRS FORE. Last night! And what would your impudence infer from last night? Last night was like the night before, I think.

SCAN. 'Sdeath, do you make no difference between me and your husband?

MRS FORE. Not much,--he's superst.i.tious, and you are mad, in my opinion.

SCAN. You make me mad. You are not serious. Pray recollect yourself.

MRS FORE. Oh yes, now I remember, you were very impertinent and impudent,--and would have come to bed to me.

SCAN. And did not?

MRS FORE. Did not! With that face can you ask the question?

SCAN. This I have heard of before, but never believed. I have been told, she had that admirable quality of forgetting to a man's face in the morning that she had lain with him all night, and denying that she had done favours with more impudence than she could grant 'em. Madam, I'm your humble servant, and honour you.--You look pretty well, Mr Foresight: how did you rest last night?

FORE. Truly, Mr Scandal, I was so taken up with broken dreams and distracted visions that I remember little.

SCAN. 'Twas a very forgetting night. But would you not talk with Valentine? Perhaps you may understand him; I'm apt to believe there is something mysterious in his discourses, and sometimes rather think him inspired than mad.

FORE. You speak with singular good judgment, Mr Scandal, truly. I am inclining to your Turkish opinion in this matter, and do reverence a man whom the vulgar think mad. Let us go to him.

MRS FRAIL. Sister, do you stay with them; I'll find out my lover, and give him his discharge, and come to you. O' my conscience, here he comes.

SCENE XIII.

MRS FRAIL, BEN.

BEN. All mad, I think. Flesh, I believe all the calentures of the sea are come ash.o.r.e, for my part.

MRS FRAIL. Mr Benjamin in choler!