MRS. BOBBINS. My first husband never treated me so!
AUGUS. Comparisons are odious, Mrs. Bobbins. That first husband of yours was a very remarkable fellow.
MRS. BOBBINS. You needn’t think to pass it off so, sir: if this is your behaviour before my face, I tremble to think what your conduct may have been behind my back, during my absence.
AUGUS. Now, Constantia! my dear! Do I everlastingly torment you with inquiries into your conduct during my absence? Here have you been scouring the country to Salisbury alone, after a legacy, which, for anything I can discover, appears to be all a bam, and do I annoy you on your return with ridiculous jealous fits? On the contrary, don’t I promote and fall into all your little plans and amusements?
MRS. BOBBINS. Amusement! Do you think it’s any amusement to me to be worried out of my life with lawyers, and business I don’t understand? There’s a fresh difficulty now about a cousin abroad. If you were like other husbands, you would never suffer a young and pretty wife, more than twenty years your junior, to travel about alone.
AUGUS. Oh, my dear, I have a thorough confidence in you—there’s a rigidity of propriety about your deportment, that will always act as an efficient safeguard in the hour of danger.
MRS. BOBBINS. Don’t make too sure of that. Don’t provoke me by your indifference to retaliate!—I should soon find an opportunity—
AUGUS. Oh, oh, oh, oh!
MRS. BOBBINS. You should have seen the assiduous—the delicate attentions I received in the train, all the way between the Bishopstoke station and town, from an elegant, foreign looking gentleman—such a pair of moustachios!