Enter Fossile, Dr. Nautilus, and Dr. Possum.
Naut. Much joy to the learned Dr. Fossile. To have a mummy, an alligator, and a wife, all in one day, is too great happiness for mortal man!
Poss. This an alligator! Alack a day, brother Nautilus, this is a mere lizard, an eft, a shrimp to mine.
Naut. How improving would it be to the female understanding, if the closets of the ladies were furnish'd, or, as I may say, ornamented and embellish'd with preserv'd butterflies, and beautiful shells, instead of China jars, and absurd Indian pictures.
Town. Now for a stratagem to bring off my unsuccessful pair of gallants.
[Aside.
[Exit Townley.
Foss. Ah, Dr. Nautilus, how have I languish'd for your feather of the bird Porphyrion!
Naut. But your dart of the Mantichora!
Foss. Your haft of the antediluvian trowel, unquestionably the tool of one of the Babel masons!
Naut. What's that to your fragment of Seth's pillar?
Poss. Gentlemen, I affirm I have a greater curiosity than all of them. I have an entire leaf of Noah's journal aboard the ark, that was hewen out of a porphyry pillar in Palmyra.
[Fossile opens the case of the mummy.