Sav. Well, how did you get off?
Court. Oh, pleaded a million engagements.——However, conscience twitched me; so I breakfasted with them this morning, and afterwards 'squired them to the gardens here, as the most private place in town; and then took a sorrowful leave, complaining of my hard, hard fortune, that obliged me to set off immediately for Dorsetshire, ha! ha! ha!
Sav. I congratulate your escape!—Courtall at Almack's, with five aukward country cousins! ha! ha! ha!—Why, your existence, as a Man of Gallantry, could never have survived it.
Court. Death, and fire! had they come to town, like the rustics of the last age, to see Paul's, the Lions, and the Wax-work—at their service;—but the cousins of our days come up Ladies—and, with the knowledge they glean from magazines and pocket-books, Fine Ladies; laugh at the bashfulness of their grandmothers, and boldly demand their entrées in the first circles.
Sav. Where can this fellow be!—Come, give me some news—I have been at war with woodcocks and partridges these two months, and am a stranger to all that has passed out of their region.
Court. Oh! enough for three Gazettes. The Ladies are going to petition for a bill, that, during the war, every man may be allowed Two Wives.
Sav. 'Tis impossible they should succeed, for the majority of both Houses know what it is to have one.
Court. Gallantry was black-ball'd at the Coterie last Thursday, and Prudence and Chastity voted in.
Sav. Ay, that may hold 'till the Camps break up.—But have ye no elopements? no divorces?
Court. Divorces are absolutely out, and the Commons-Doctors starving; so they are publishing trials of Crim. Con. with all the separate evidences at large; which they find has always a wonderful effect on their trade, actions tumbling in upon them afterwards, like mackarel at Gravesend.