Croa. Now, for my life, I can’t find out half the goodness of it.
Lofty. You can’t? Ha, ha!
Croa. No, for the soul of me; I think it was as confounded a bad answer as ever was sent from one private gentleman to another.
Lofty. And so you can’t find out the force of the message? Why, I was in the house at that very time. Ha, ha! It was I that sent that very answer to my own letter. Ha, ha!
Croa. Indeed! How?—why?
Lofty. In one word, things between Sir William and me must be behind the curtain. A party has many eyes. He sides with Lord Buzzard, I side with Sir Gilbert Goose. So that unriddles the mystery.
Croa. And so it does, indeed, and all my suspicions are over.
Lofty. Your suspicions! What, then, you have been suspecting, you have been suspecting, have you? Mr. Croaker, you and I were friends, we are friends no longer.
Croa. As I hope for your favour, I did not mean to offend. It escaped me. Don’t be discomposed.
Lofty. Zounds, sir! but I am discomposed, and will be discomposed. To be treated thus! Who am I? Was it for this I have been dreaded both by ins and outs? Have I been libelled in the Gazetteer and praised in the St. James’s? Have I been chaired at Wildman’s, and a speaker at Merchant Tailors’ Hall? Have I had my hand to addresses, and my head in the print-shops, and talk to me of suspects!