Part 24 (2/2)

HEART. d.a.m.n your pity!--but let me be calm a little. How have I deserved this of you? any of ye? Sir, have I impaired the honour of your house, promised your sister marriage, and wh.o.r.ed her? Wherein have I injured you? Did I bring a physician to your father when he lay expiring, and endeavour to prolong his life, and you one and twenty?

Madam, have I had an opportunity with you and baulked it? Did you ever offer me the favour that I refused it? Or--

BELIN. Oh foh! what does the filthy fellow mean? Lord, let me be gone.

ARAM. Hang me, if I pity you; you are right enough served.

BELL. This is a little scurrilous though.

VAIN. Nay, 'tis a sore of your own scratching--well, George?

HEART. You are the princ.i.p.al cause of all my present ills. If Sylvia had not been your mistress, my wife might have been honest.

VAIN. And if Sylvia had not been your wife, my mistress might have been just. There, we are even. But have a good heart, I heard of your misfortune, and come to your relief.

HEART. When execution's over, you offer a reprieve.

VAIN. What would you give?

HEART. Oh! Anything, everything, a leg or two, or an arm; nay, I would be divorced from my virility to be divorced from my wife.

SCENE XIV.

[_To them_] SHARPER.

VAIN. Faith, that's a sure way: but here's one can sell you freedom better cheap.

SHARP. Vainlove, I have been a kind of a G.o.dfather to you yonder. I have promised and vowed some things in your name which I think you are bound to perform.

VAIN. No signing to a blank, friend.

SHARP. No, I'll deal fairly with you. 'Tis a full and free discharge to Sir Joseph Wittal and Captain Bluffe; for all injuries whatsoever, done unto you by them, until the present date hereof. How say you?

VAIN. Agreed.

SHARP. Then, let me beg these ladies to wear their masks, a moment. Come in, gentlemen and ladies.

HEART. What the devil's all this to me?

VAIN. Patience.

SCENE the Last

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