FOURTH LADY
O, Mr. H. those ranunculas you said were dying, pretty things, they have
got up——­

FIFTH LADY
I have worked that sprig you commended—­I want you to come——­

MR. H.
Ladies——­

SIXTH LADY
I have sent for that piece of music from London.

MR. H.
The Mozart—­(seeing Melesinda.)—­Melesinda!

SEVERAL LADIES AT ONCE
Nay positively, Melesinda, you shan’t engross him all to yourself.

(While the Ladies are pressing about MR. H. the Gentlemen shew signs of displeasure.)

FIRST GENTLEMAN
We shan’t be able to edge in a word, now this coxcomb is come.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Damn him, I will affront him.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Sir, with your leave, I have a word to say to one of these ladies.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
If we could be heard——­

(The ladies pay no attention but to MR. H.)

MR. H. You see, gentlemen, how the matter stands. (Hums an air.) I am not my own master:  positively I exist and breathe but to be agreeable to these——­Did you speak?

FIRST GENTLEMAN
And affects absence of mind, Puppy!

MR. H. Who spoke of absence of mind, did you, Madam?  How do you do, Lady Wearwell—­how do?  I did not see your ladyship before—­what was I about to say—­O—­absence of mind.  I am the most unhappy dog in that way, sometimes spurt out the strangest things—­the most mal-a-propos—­without meaning to give the least offence, upon my honour—­sheer absence of mind—­things I would have given the world not to have said.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Do you hear the coxcomb?

FIRST LADY
Great wits, they say——­

SECOND LADY
Your fine geniuses are most given——­

THIRD LADY
Men of bright parts are commonly too vivacious——­

MR. H. But you shall hear.  I was to dine the other day at a great nabob’s, that must be nameless, who, between ourselves, is strongly suspected of—­being very rich, that’s all.  John, my valet, who knows my foible, cautioned me, while he was dressing me, as he usually does where he thinks there’s a danger of my committing a lapsus, to take care in my conversation how I made any allusion direct or indirect to presents —­you understand me?  I set out double charged with my fellow’s consideration and my own, and, to do myself justice, behaved with tolerable circumspection for the first half hour or so—­till at last a gentleman in company, who was indulging a free vein of raillery at the expense of the ladies, stumbled upon that expression of the poet, which calls them “fair defects.”

FIRST LADY
It is Pope, I believe, who says it.