Rhod. And do not you?
D’Ol. Not I, I admire nothing but wit.
Rhod. But I wonder how she entertains time in that solitary cell: does she not take tobacco, think you?
D’Ol. She does, she does: others make it their physic, she makes it her food: her sister and she take it by turn, first one, then the other, and Vandome ministers to them both.
Mug. How sayest thou by that Helen of Greece the Countess’s sister? there were a paragon, Monsieur D’Olive, to admire and marry too.
D’Ol. Not for me.
Rhod. No? what exceptions lie against the choice?
D’Ol. Tush, tell me not of choice; if I stood affected that way, I would choose my wife as men do Valentines, blindfold, or draw cuts for them, for so I shall be sure not to be deceived in choosing; for take this of me, there’s ten times more deceit in women than in horse-flesh; and I say still, that a pretty well-pac’d chamber-maid is the only fashion; if she grows full or fulsome, give her but sixpence to buy her a hand-basket, and send her the way of all flesh, there’s no more but so.
Mug. Indeed that’s the savingest way.
D’Ol. O me! what a hell ’tis for a man to be tied to the continual charge of a coach, with the appurtenances, horses, men, and so forth: and then to have a man’s house pestered with a whole country of guests, grooms, panders, waiting-maids, &c. I careful to please my wife, she careless to displease me; shrewish if she be honest; intolerable if she be wise; imperious as an empress; all she does must be law, all she says gospel: oh, what a penance ’tis to endure her! I glad to forbear still, all to keep her loyal, and yet perhaps when all’s done, my heir shall be like my horse-keeper: fie on’t! the very thought of marriage were able to cool the hottest liver in France.