The Recruiting Officer

by George Farquhar

Brazen. Not a stick, my dear!

Plume. Probably I shall furnish you, my dear! instead of the twenty thousand pounds you talked of, you shall have the twenty brave recruits that I have raised, at the rate they cost me——My commission I lay down, to be taken up by some braver fellow, that has more merit, and less good fortune—whilst I endeavour, by the example of this worthy gentleman, to serve my king and country at home.

With some regret I quit the active field,

Where glory full reward for life does yield;

But the recruiting trade, with all its train

Of endless plague, fatigue, and endless pain,

I gladly quit, with my fair spouse to stay,

And raise recruits the matrimonial way.

[Exeunt omnes.

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THE END.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE A number of obvious misspellings have been corrected and missingpunctuation has been silently added. Contemporary spellings havegenerally been retained (e.g. but for butt, cieling, ideot, quinted forsquinted). One character name appears in the text as both Tummus andTummas. Two additional changes have been made and can be identifiedin the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:
You lie; and you are are a son of a whore	You lie; and you are a son of a whore
I'll built a watch-tower	I'll build a watch-tower