Gom. Very likely; and not finding me at home, you were forced to toy away an hour with my wife, or so.
Lor. Right; thou speak'st my very soul.
Gom. Why, am not I a friend, then, to help thee out? you would have been fumbling half an hour for this excuse. But, as I remember, you promised to storm my citadel, and bring your regiment of red locusts upon me for free quarters: I find, colonel, by your habit, there are black locusts in the world, as well as red.
Elv. When comes my share of the reckoning to be called for?[Aside.
Lor. Give me thy hand; thou art the honestest, 426 kind man!—I was resolved I would not out of thy house till I had seen thee.
Gom. No, in my conscience, if I had staid abroad till midnight. But, colonel, you and I shall talk in another tone hereafter; I mean, in cold friendship, at a bar before a judge, by the way of plaintiff and defendant. Your excuses want some grains to make them current: Hum, and ha, will not do the business.—There's a modest lady of your acquaintance, she has so much grace to make none at all, but silently to confess the power of dame Nature working in her body to youthful appetite.
Elv. How he got in I know not, unless it were by virtue of his habit.
Gom. Ay, ay, the virtues of that habit are known abundantly.
Elv. I could not hinder his entrance, for he took me unprovided.
Gom. To resist him.