WILLIAM The finical gentleman has been here about the seal that was his grandfather's.
FLINT He cannot have it. Truly, our trade would be brought to a fine pass, if we were bound to humour the fancies of our customers. This man would be taking a liking to a snuff-box that he had inherited; and that gentlewoman might conceit a favourite chemise that had descended to her.
WILLIAM The lady in the carriage has been here crying about those jewels. She says, if you cannot let her have them at the advance she offers, her husband will come to know that she has pledged them.
FLINT I have uses for those jewels. Send Marian to me. (Exit William.) I know no other trade that is expected to depart from its fair advantages but ours. I do not see the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, or, to go higher, the lawyer, the physician, the divine, give up any of their legitimate gains, even when the pretences of their art had failed; yet we are to be branded with an odious name, stigmatized, discountenanced even by the administrators of those laws which acknowledge us; scowled at by the lower sort of people, whose needs we serve!
Enter Marian.
Come hither, Marian. Come, kiss your father. The report runs that he is full of spotted crime. What is your belief, child?
MARIAN That never good report went with our calling, father. I have heard you say, the poor look only to the advantages which we derive from them, and overlook the accommodations which they receive from us. But the poor are the poor, father, and have little leisure to make distinctions. I wish we could give up this business.
FLINT
You have not seen that idle fellow, Davenport?
MARIAN
No, indeed, father, since your injunction.
FLINT
I take but my lawful profit. The law is not over favourable to us.