Miss Sna. (L.) What a censorious man you are, Mr. Damper, you rail at our sex as if you considered it man’s natural enemy, instead of his best friend. Is it possible that you have never loved a woman in all your life?
Dam. I love a woman! Ugh! I look upon you all as the first great cause of every evil.
Miss Sna. For, like most first great causes, you don’t understand us.
Dam. If I don’t, I have no wish to acquire any such useless knowledge. May I ask what you want at my friend Niggle’s, so early in the morning: some conspiracy, I’ll be bound. I wont allow it, Miss Snare; if you think to inveigle him into matrimony, you’ll find yourself mistaken; he shall never marry, if I can prevent him making such a ninny of himself.
Miss Sna. It is entirely through your interference, I have been told, that he is in a state of celibacy; and, though the poor gentleman is now fifty-five, yet ever since he arrived at years of discretion, he has been sighing and pining for a wife.
Dam. He would have been a ruined man long ago, but for me; five times have I saved him from the matrimonial precipice.
Miss Sna. How did you save him?
Dam. How? I have discovered his intention to marry, and knowing how nervous he is upon the subject, I have always interfered in time, told him in strong language the evils he was bringing upon his head, brought instances of married misery so plainly before his eyes, that I have frightened him out of his wits; and one morning, eight years ago, he was actually dressed and on his way to church to unite himself to some designing woman, when I luckily met him, and dragged him back again by the collar.
Miss Sna. And he had to pay five hundred pounds damages, in an action for breach of promise.
Dam. But he purchased independence and happiness with the money. I have been his best friend through life; didn’t I go out with him when he was challenged by a young lady’s brother, twenty years ago, because I made him relinquish his attentions to her? And though he has been shot at and caned, and has paid damages in two actions for breach of promise, yet by meeting those small evils, he has escaped that far greater one—a wife; and every morning when he rises a free man, I know he invokes a blessing on my head. (Sits at table, L.)