Such Things Are: A Play, in Five Acts

E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net)
The travels of an Englishman throughout Europe, and even in some parts of Asia, to soften the sorrows of the Prisoner, excited in the mind of the Author the subject of the following pages, which, formed into a dramatic story, have produced from the Theatre a profit far exceeding the usual pecuniary advantages arising from a successful Comedy.
The uncertainty in what part of the East the hero of the present piece was (at the time it was written) dispensing his benevolence, caused the Writer, after many researches and objections, to fix the scene on the island of Sumatra, where the English settlement, the system of government, and every description of the manners of the people, reconcile the incidents of the Play to the strictest degree of probability.
SCENE I. A Parlour at Sir Luke Tremor' s . Enter Sir Luke, followed by Lady Tremor.
Sir Luke. I tell you, Madam, you are two and thirty.
Lady Tremor. I tell you, Sir, you are mistaken.
Sir Luke. Why, did not you come over from England exactly sixteen years ago?
Lady. Not so long.
Sir Luke. Have not we been married the tenth of next April sixteen years?
Lady. Not so long.—
Sir Luke. Did you not come over the year of the great Eclipse? answer me that.
Lady. I don't remember it.