Tom. This alehouse, where we all meet, is joining to a great house very well furnished; and the care of letting it is committed to our landlord. He has broken down a partition, which he can, in a day or two, make up again; and we have noble apartments for our entertainments, not inferior to those wherein our masters themselves are received.
Sir Har. You divert me extremely with this new scene of pleasure.
Tom. We shall be in our tip-top jollity to-night; all the lower world [will] be together in as much pleasure as ever the upper themselves enjoyed.
Sir Har. What have you extraordinary at this time more than any other?
Tom. Our landlord is giving up[142] his business, and marries his daughter, Mrs. Jenny, my Lady Dainty's chambermaid, to the favourite footman of Sir John Plover, who is a great leader among us, and will keep and increase the custom of the house. But the humour is, no one is to know which is the bridegroom; for none but the girl herself [knows] which of the company is Sir John.
Sir Har. How! Sir John?
Tom. I should have told you that we always call one another by the names of our masters; and you must not be surprised at hearing me answer to your honour's to all who call to me; for, as I am a manager, and to be barefaced, I cannot disguise that I am you.
Sir Har. It is no matter if they will take me as readily for your fellow-servant.
Tom. They'll never suspect you for my master.—But here comes my landlord.