MISS RICH. I protest, sir, I do not. I perceive only that you answer one gentleman before he has finished, and the other before he has well begun.
BAILIFF. Madam, you are a gentlewoman, and I will make the matter out. This here question is about severity and justice, and pardon, and the like of they. Now to explain the thing—
SERVANT. Mr. Leontine, sir, below, desires to speak with you upon earnest business.
HONEYW. That's lucky (_aside._) Dear madam, you'll excuse me, and my good friends here, for a few minutes. There are books, madam, to amuse you. Come, gentlemen, you know I make no ceremony with such friends. After you, sir. Excuse me. Well, if I must; but I know your natural politeness.
FOLLOWER. Ay, ay, before and behind, before and behind.
[_Exeunt_ HONEYWOOD, BAILIFF, _and_ FOLLOWER.
MISS RICH. What can all this mean, Garnet?
GARNET. Mean, madam? why, what should it mean, but what Mr. Lofty sent you here to see? These people he calls officers, are officers sure enough: sheriff's officers; bailiffs, madam.
MISS RICH. Ay, it is certainly so. Well, though his perplexities are far from giving me pleasure; yet I own there's something very ridiculous in them, and a just punishment for his dissimulation.
GARNET. And so they are. But I wonder, madam, that the lawyer you just employed to pay his debts and set him free, has not done it by this time. He ought at least to have been here before now. But lawyers are always more ready to get a man into troubles, than out of them.
SIR WILL. For Miss Richland to undertake setting him free, I own, was quite unexpected. It has totally unhinged my schemes to reclaim him. Yet, it gives me pleasure to find, that, among a number of worthless friendships, he has made one acquisition of real value; for there must be some softer passion on her side that prompts this generosity. Ha! here before me: I'll endeavour to sound her affections. Madam, as I am the person that have had some demands upon the gentleman of this house, I hope you'll excuse me, if, before I enlarged him, I wanted to see yourself.
MISS RICH. The precaution was very unnecessary, sir. I suppose your wants were only such as my agent had power to satisfy.
SIR WILL. Partly, madam. But, I was also willing you should be fully apprised of the character of the gentleman you intended to serve.