He was sipping his Madeira, immersed in melancholy musing, when his father entered and requested a rational solution of all this absurdity.

"I will leave it in writing for your satisfaction. The crisis of my fate is come. The world is a stage, and my direction is exit."

"Do not talk so, sir; do not talk so, Scythrop! What would you have?"

"I would have my love."

"And pray, sir, who is your love?"

"Celinda--Marionetta--either--both."

"Both! That may do very well in a German tragedy, but it will not do in Lincolnshire. Will you have Miss Toobad?"

"Yes."

"And renounce Marionetta?"

"No."