Jack.
Would you cozen an ape?
Fopdoodle.
[Aside] I’ll steal into Miss Violet’s secret heart through this half-open, half-witted gate of a cousin. [Aloud] I’m in love. Help me, Jack. About the king, good Jack, I was but joking; and if I were married to Miss Violet, and were the king’s lord, I would not hurt a hair on an ape’s body. Oh, she’s a sweet conundrum; a rose is a conundrum,—why, I’m a sweet conundrum myself. Jack, you’re a stunning good fellow, an awfully good ape. Let me stroke ape’s hair.
Jack.
Paws off! You Miss my cousin, but she’ll not miss you. I represent to-night a missing link which were well found in you. I’m in full dress,—Nature’s regulation costume for the ape; but you commit a barefaced outrage with your ape’s nature minus the hair. Meet me at the masquerade.
[Going.
Fopdoodle.
Tom, my man, stand firm!—Don’t go, Jack.—I’ll go too.
[Exeunt.