GARNET. Truly, madam, I write and indite but poorly. I never was kute at my larning. can to please you. Let me fee. head, I fuppofe? Whatever you please. OLIVIA. GARNET. But I'll do what I All out of my own (Writing.) Mufter Croaker-Twenty guineas, madam? OLIVIA. Aye, twenty will do. GARNET. At the bar of the Talbot till call'd for. Expedition-Will be blown up-All of a flame-Quick difpatch-Cupid, the little god of love-I conclude it, madam, with Cupid; I love to fee a love-letter end like poetry. OLIVIA. Well, well, what you please, any thing. But how fhall we fend it? I can truft none of the fervants of this family. GARNET. Odfo, madam, Mr. Honeywood's butler is in the next room: he's a dear, fweet man; he'll do any thing for me. JARVIS. He! the dog, he'll certainly commit fome blunder. He's drunk and fober ten times a day. OLIVIA. OLIVIA. No matter. Fly, Garnet: any body we can trust will do. [Exit Garnet.] Well, Jarvis, now we can have nothing more to interrupt us. You may take up the things, and carry them on to the inn. Have you no hands, Jarvis? JARVIS. Soft and fair, young lady. You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too faft: but, we, that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam. OLIVIA. Well, fure, if my indifcretions were to be done over again JARVIS. My life for it, you would do them ten times over. OLIVIA. Why will you talk fo? If you knew how unhap. py they make me▬▬▬▬▬▬ JARVIS. Very unhappy, no doubt: I was once just as unhappy when I was going to be married myself. I'll tell you a ftory about that OLIVIA. A ftory! when I'm all impatience to be away. Was there ever fuch a dilatory creature! JARVIS. Well, madam, if we muft march, why we will march; that's all. Though, odds bobs, we have ftill forgot one thing we should never travel without-a cafe of good razors, and a box of shavingpowder. But no matter, I believe we shall be pretty well fhaved by the way. [Going. Enter GARNET. GARNET. Undone, undone, madam. Ah, Mr. Jarvis, you faid right enough. As fure as death Mr. Honeywood's rogue of a drunken butler, dropp'd the letter before he went ten yards from the door. There's old Croaker has just pick'd it up, and is this moment reading it to himself in the hall. OLIVIA. Unfortunate! We fhall be difcovered. GARNET. No, madam: don't be uneafy, he can make neither head nor tail of it. To be fure he looks as if he was broke loofe from Bedlam about it, but he can't find what it means for all that. O lud, he is coming this way all in the horrors ! OLIVIA. Then let us leave the house this inftant, for fear he should ask farther questions. In the mean time, Garnet, do you write and fend off just such another, [Exeunt. Enter Enter CROAKER. CROAKER. Death and deftruction! Are all the horrors of air, fire and water to be levelled only at me! Am I only to be fingled out for gunpowder-plots, combustibles and conflagration! Here it is-An incendiary letter dropped at my door. "To mufter Croaker, thefe, "with speed." Aye, aye, plain enough the direction all in the genuine incendiary fpelling, and as cramp as the devil. "With speed." O, confound your speed. But let me read it once more. (Reads.) "Mufter Croaker as fone as yoew fee this "leve twenty guineas at the bar of the Talboot tell "called for or yowe and yower experetion will be "al blown up." Ah, but too plain. Blood and gunpowder in every line of it. Blown up! murderous dog! All blown up! Heavens! what have I and my poor family done, to be all blown up! (Reads.)" Our pockets are low, and money we must "have." Aye, there's the reason; they'll blow us up, because they have got low pockets. (Reads.) "It is but a fhort time you have to confider; for if "this takes wind, the houfe will quickly be all of a flame." Inhuman monfters! blow us up, and then burn us. The earthquake at Lisbon was but a bonfire to it. (Reads.) "Make quick difpatch, "and fo no more at prefent. But may Cupid, the "little god of love, go with you wherever you go" The little god of love! Cupid, the little god of love go with me! Go you to the devil, you and your little Cupid together; I'm fo frightened, I fcarce know whether I fit, ftand, or go. Perhaps this moment I'm treading on lighted matches, blazing brimstone and barrels of gunpowder. They are preparing to blow me up into the clouds. Murder! We fhall be all burnt in our beds; we fhall be all burnt in our beds, What fignifies what you hope, madam, when I have a certificate of it here in my hand? Will nothing alarm my family? Sleeping and eating, fleeping and eating is the only work from morning till night in my houfe. My infenfible crew could fleep, though rock'd by an earthquake; and fry beef fteaks at a volcano. Mifs RICHLAND. But, Sir, you have alarmed them fo often already, we have nothing but earthquakes, famines, plagues and mad dogs from year's end to year's end. You remem |