DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
CAPTAIN AUDAINE, an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman.
LORD HUMPHREY DEGGE, an airy young gentleman, loves Miss Allonby for her
money.
VANRINGHAM, emissary and confederate of Audaine.
MISS ALLONBY, a young lady of wit and fortune.
ATTENDANTS to Lord Humphrey, Etc.
SCENE
Tunbridge Wells, first in and about Lord Humphrey's lodgings, then shifting to a drawing-room in Lady Allonby's villa.
THE RHYME TO PORRINGER
PROEM:—Merely to Serve as Intermezzo
Next morning Captain Audaine was closeted with Mr. Vanringham in the latter's apartments at the Three Gudgeons. I abridge the Captain's relation of their interview, and merely tell you that it ended in the actor's looking up, with a puzzled face, from a certain document.
"You might have let me have a whiff of this," Mr. Vanringham began. "You might have breathed, say, a syllable or two last night—"
"I had my instructions, sir, but yesterday," replied the Captain; "and surely, Mr. Vanringham, to have presumed last night upon my possession of this paper, so far as to have demanded any favor of you, were unreasonable, even had it not savored of cowardice. For, as it has been very finely observed, it is the nicest part of commerce in the world, that of doing and receiving benefits. O Lord, sir! there are so many thousand circumstances, with respect to time, person, and place, which either heighten or allay the value of the obligation—"