Tom. Master Humphry, ha! ha! you were an unhappy lad to be sent up to town in such queer days as you were. Why, now, sir, the lackeys are the men of pleasure of the age, the top gamesters; and many a laced coat about town have had their education in our party-coloured regiment. We are false lovers; have a taste of music, poetry, billet-doux, dress, politics; ruin damsels; and when we are tired of this lewd town, and have a mind to take up, whip into our masters' wigs and linen, and marry fortunes.
Humph. Hey-day!
Tom. Nay, sir, our order is carried up to the highest dignities and distinctions; step but into the Painted Chamber,[119] and by our titles you'd take us all for men of quality. Then, again, come down to the Court of Requests, and you see us all laying our broken heads together for the good of the nation; and though we never carry a question nemine contradicente, yet this I can say, with a safe conscience (and I wish every gentleman of our cloth could lay his hand upon his heart and say the same), that I never took so much as a single mug of beer for my vote in all my life.
Humph. Sirrah, there is no enduring your extravagance; I'll hear you prate no longer. I wanted to see you to enquire how things go with your master, as far as you understand them; I suppose he knows he is to be married to-day.
Tom. Ay, sir, he knows it, and is dressed as gay as the sun; but, between you and I, my dear, he has a very heavy heart under all that gaiety. As soon as he was dressed I retired, but overheard him sigh in the most heavy manner. He walked thoughtfully to and fro in the room, then went into his closet; when he came out he gave me this for his mistress, whose maid, you know——
Humph. Is passionately fond of your fine person.
Tom. The poor fool is so tender, and loves to hear me talk of the world, and the plays, operas, and ridottos[120] for the winter, the parks and Belsize[121] for our summer diversions; and "Lard!" says she, "you are so wild, but you have a world of humour."
Humph. Coxcomb! Well, but why don't you run with your master's letter to Mrs. Lucinda, as he ordered you?
Tom. Because Mrs. Lucinda is not so easily come at as you think for.
Humph. Not easily come at? Why, sirrah, are not her father and my old master agreed that she and Mr. Bevil are to be one flesh before to-morrow morning?