ACRES
My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands.
Sir LUCIUS
Pray, my friend, what has brought you so suddenly to Bath?
ACRES Faith! I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and find myself in a quagmire at last.—In short, I have been very ill used, Sir Lucius.—I don't choose to mention names, but look on me as on a very ill-used gentleman.
Sir LUCIUS
Pray what is the case?—I ask no names.
ACRES Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need be in love with a young lady—her friends take my part—I follow her to Bath—send word of my arrival; and receive answer, that the lady is to be otherwise disposed of.—This, Sir Lucius, I call being ill-used.
Sir LUCIUS
Very ill, upon my conscience.—Pray, can you divine the cause of it?
ACRES Why, there's the matter; she has another lover, one Beverley, who, I am told, is now in Bath.—Odds slanders and lies! he must be at the bottom of it.
Sir LUCIUS A rival in the case, is there?—and you think he has supplanted you unfairly?
ACRES
Unfairly! to be sure he has. He never could have done it fairly.
Sir LUCIUS
Then sure you know what is to be done!