Gripe. But is there a necessity then, they shou'd ruin somebody?
Brass. Yes, marry is there; how wou'd you have 'em support their expence else? Why, Sir, you can't conceive now——you can't conceive what Araminta's privy-purse requires. Only her privy purse, Sir! Why, what do you imagine now she gave me for the last letter I carry'd her from you? 'Tis true, 'twas from a man she lik'd, else, perhaps, I had had my bones broke. But what do you think she gave me?
Gripe. Why, mayhap——a shilling.
Brass. A guinea, Sir, a guinea. You see by that how fond she was on't, by the bye. But then, Sir, her coach-hire; her chair-hire, her pin-money, her play-money, her china, and her charity——wou'd consume peers: A great soul, a very great soul! but what's the end of all this?
Gripe. Ha!
Brass. Why, I'll tell you what the end is——a nunnery.
Gripe. A nunnery!
Brass. A nunnery.——In short she is at last reduc'd to that extremity, and attack'd with such a battalion of duns, that rather than tell her husband (who you know is such a dog, he'd let her go if she did) she has e'en determin'd to turn papist, and bid the world adieu for life.
Gripe. O terrible! a papist!
Brass. Yes, when a handsome woman has brought herself into difficulties, the devil can't help her out of——To a nunnery, that's another rule, Sir.