[Exit SERVANT.]
Sure Fortune never play'd a man of my policy such a Trick before—my character with Sir Peter!—my Hopes with Maria!—destroy'd in a moment!—I'm in a rare Humour to listen to other People's Distresses!—I shan't be able to bestow even a benevolent sentiment on Stanley—So! here—He comes and Rowley with him—I MUST try to recover myself, and put a little Charity into my Face however.——
[Exit.]
Enter SIR OLIVER and ROWLEY
SIR OLIVER. What! does He avoid us? that was He—was it not?
ROWLEY. It was Sir—but I doubt you are come a little too abruptly—his Nerves are so weak that the sight of a poor Relation may be too much for him—I should have gone first to break you to him.
SIR OLIVER. A Plague of his Nerves—yet this is He whom Sir Peter extolls as a Man of the most Benevolent way of thinking!—
ROWLEY. As to his way of thinking—I can't pretend to decide[,] for, to do him justice He appears to have as much speculative Benevolence as any private Gentleman in the Kingdom—though he is seldom so sensual as to indulge himself in the exercise of it——
SIR OLIVER. Yet [he] has a string of charitable Sentiments I suppose at his Fingers' ends!—
ROWLEY. Or, rather at his Tongue's end Sir Oliver; for I believe there is no sentiment he has more faith in than that 'Charity begins at Home.'
SIR OLIVER. And his I presume is of that domestic sort which never stirs abroad at all.