“Poor devils, they rant for their living—what can you expect?” says his Dukeship with easy contempt.
“Not altogether—as I think your Grace knows as well as most,” says Mr. Rich with a somewhat gross twinkle in his eye, then hastened on as the Duke stiffened a little. “Be that as it may, we can’t do without ’em, and God knows I’d sooner manage fifty men than one haughty slut like Mrs. Oldfield or Mrs. Cibber. But I think there to be little question that if my cast is what I desire, this venture of Gay’s may take the town. Can either of your Lordships oblige me with a seductive Polly?”
“Pretty Polly!” mocked the American Prince, “Why I know a brace of pretty Pollys, Rich,—but they don’t warble, no more than their namesakes. I take it your Polly must be tuneful?”
“Lord, Yes! your Lordship. She must have a voice like a thrush and the face of an innocent angel new strayed from Eden, and the heart of a little devil (“That should not be hard to find!” interpolated his Grace), and the abandonment of ‘The Country Wife,’ and the archness of Millamant, and the demureness of a cat after cream, and——”
“And in short the paragon doesn’t exist.” Lord Baltimore was yawning again, and flicking imaginary dust off his smoke coloured velvet. “Can’t you dispense with her, Richie?”
“Why, I have sent a hue and cry through the provinces, and even through the purlieus of Drury Lane and St. Giles’s.”
“Faugh!” says his Lordship, “Well, I was ever obliging, Richie, and if I hear tell of a Venus with the appearance of Dian and the voice of Polyhymnia you shan’t lack for information. Are you for Lady Lansdowne’s drum, Bolton? There’s a fair widow there— Ah, Richie,—if beauty and rank and every elegant accomplishment would take the boards, you might find your heroine yet.”
Rich grinned:
“They take ’em at second-hand, your Lordship, running after our handsome players. But if you will deprive me of your company will you look in tomorrow about this time to know if I have trapped my quarry? If not, we must hang up the play for a better season.”
“What does Gay call his stuff?” asked the Duke, leisurely descending from the table.