Sailor. Why now, heaven bless you honour forever; and if ever you’re in distress, and I’m within sight of signals, why hang out your blue lights; and if I don’t bear down to your assistance, may my gun be primed with damp powder the first time we fire a broadside at the enemy. [Exit.
O’Dedimus rings a bell.
O’Ded. Ponder! Now will this fellow be thinking and thinking, till he quite forgets what he’s doing. Ponder, I say! (enter Ponder.) Here, Ponder, take this letter to farmer Flail’s, and if you see Mrs. Muddle, his neighbour, give my love and duty to her.
Ponder. Yes, yes, sir; but at that moment, sir, I was immersed in thought, if I may be allowed the expression; I was thinking of the vast difference between love and law, and yet how neatly you’ve spliced them together in your last instructions to your humble servant, Peter Ponder, clerk.—Umph!
O’Ded. Umph! is that your manners, you bear-garden? Will I never be able to larn you to behave yourself? Study me, and talk like a gentleman, and be damn’d to ye.
Ponder. I study the law; I can’t talk it.
O’Ded. Cant you? Then you’ll never do. If your tongue don’t run faster than your client’s, how will you ever be able to bother him, you booby?
Ponder. I’ll draw out his case; he shall read, and he’ll bother himself.
O’Ded. You’ve a notion. Mind my instructions, and I don’t despair of seeing you at the bar one day. Was that copy of a writ sarved yesterday upon Garble, the tailor?
Ponder. Aye.