_San._ Now will I stand _incognito_, like some mighty potentate, and see my own embassy delivered.
[CARLOS _overtakes_ LOPEZ _and_ DALINDA, _just going off, and salutes them_.
_Lop._ Cousin Carlos, you are welcome from the wars; I think I saw you in the show to day.
_Carl._ The ceremony hindered me from paying my respects; but I made haste, you see----
_Lop._ I hope you'll no more be a stranger to my house, than you have been formerly. Your mistress here will be proud to entertain you; and then you shall tell me the whole expedition. I love battles wonderfully, when a man may hear them without peril of his person.
_San._ [_Aside._] Nothing of my letter all this while!--why when Carlos? [_Whispering aloud to him._
_Carl._ [_Aside._] Now I dare not but deliver it, because he sees me.--Don Lopez, I have a foolish kind of petition to you. [_To_ LOP.
_Lop._ Why do you call it a foolish petition?
_Carl._ Because I bring it from a fool. There's a friend of mine, of a plentiful fortune, that's desperately in love with your fair daughter, Dalinda; and has commanded me, by your permission, to deliver this letter to her.
_Lop._ A rich man's letter may be delivered. [CARLOS _gives her the Letter_.
_Dal._ What's here? A note without a superscription [_She seems to read._] As I live, a bill of exchange for two hundred pistoles, charged upon a banker, and payable to the bearer! An accomplished cavalier I warrant him; he writes finely, and in the best manner.
_Carl._ [_Aside._] There's the covetous sex, at the first syllable! The fool's good planet begins to work already; but I shall stop its influence.
_Lop._ Good cousin colonel, what manner of man is my son-in-law that may be?
_Carl._ D'ye see that sneaking fellow yonder?
_Carl._ Plague, ye make me mad betwixt ye. His outside's tawdry, and his inside's fool. He's an usurer's son, and his father was a Jew.
_Dal._ No matter for all that, he's rich.
_Carl._ He was begot upon the wife of a desperate debtor, out of pure good husbandry, to save something. He's covetous by the father's side, a blockhead by the mother's, and a knave by both.
_Lop._ I see nothing like your description of him, at this distance. Call him hither, I would fain speak with him.