JERE. Sir, Mrs. Frail has sent to know if you are stirring.
VAL. If there were, you have more discretion than to give Scandal such an advantage. Why, your running away will prove all that he can tell her.
TATT. Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous. Oh, I shall lose my reputation of secrecy for ever. I shall never be received but upon public days, and my visits will never be admitted beyond a drawing-room. I shall never see a bed-chamber again, never be locked in a closet, nor run behind a screen, or under a table: never be distinguished among the waiting-women by the name of trusty Mr. Tattle more. You will not be so cruel?
VAL. Scandal, have pity on him; he’ll yield to any conditions.
SCAN. Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good reputation to me presently. Come, where are you familiar? And see that they are women of quality, too—the first quality.
TATT. ’Tis very hard. Won’t a baronet’s lady pass?
SCAN. No, nothing under a right honourable.
TATT. Oh, inhuman! You don’t expect their names?
TATT. Alas, that’s the same thing. Pray spare me their titles. I’ll describe their persons.
SCAN. Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are so ill a painter that I cannot know the person by your picture of her, you must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write the name at the bottom.
TATT. Oh, unfortunate! She’s come already; will you have patience till another time? I’ll double the number.
SCAN. Well, on that condition. Take heed you don’t fail me.
MRS. FRAIL. I shall get a fine reputation by coming to see fellows in a morning. Scandal, you devil, are you here too? Oh, Mr. Tattle, everything is safe with you, we know.
TATT. Mum. O madam, you do me too much honour.
VAL. Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?
VAL. What, you will allow an absent lover—
MRS. FRAIL. No, I’ll allow a lover present with his mistress to be particular; but otherwise, I think his passion ought to give place to his manners.
VAL. But what if he has more passion than manners?
MRS. FRAIL. Then let him marry and reform.
VAL. Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man’s manners.
MRS. FRAIL. You are the most mistaken in the world; there is no creature perfectly civil but a husband. For in a little time he grows only rude to his wife, and that is the highest good breeding, for it begets his civility to other people. Well, I’ll tell you news; but I suppose you hear your brother Benjamin is landed? And my brother Foresight’s daughter is come out of the country: I assure you, there’s a match talked of by the old people. Well, if he be but as great a sea-beast as she is a land-monster, we shall have a most amphibious breed. The progeny will be all otters. He has been bred at sea, and she has never been out of the country.