MR. H.
Hogment it! damn it, I said, augment it.

LANDLORD Lord, Sir, ’tis not every body has such gift of fine phrases as your Honour, that can lard his discourse.

MR. H.
Lard!

LANDLORD
Suppose they do smoke you—­

MR. H.
Smoke me?

LANDLORD One of my phrases; never mind my words, Sir, my meaning is good.  We all mean the same thing, only you express yourself one way, and I another, that’s all.  The meaning’s the same; it is all pork.

MR. H.
That’s another of your phrases, I presume. (Bell rings, and the
Landlord called for.)

LANDLORD
Anon, anon.

MR. H.
O, I wish I were anonymous.

[Exeunt several ways.]

SCENE.—­Melesinda’s Apartment.

(MELESINDA and Maid.)

MAID Lord, Madam! before I’d take on as you do about a foolish—­what signifies a name?  Hogs—­Hogs—­what is it—­is just as good as any other for what I see.

MELESINDA Ignorant creature! yet she is perhaps blest in the absence of those ideas, which, while they add a zest to the few pleasures which fall to the lot of superior natures to enjoy, doubly edge the—­

MAID Superior natures! a fig!  If he’s hog by name, he’s not hog by nature, that don’t follow—­his name don’t make him any thing, does it?  He don’t grunt the more for it, nor squeak, that ever I hear; he likes his victuals out of a plate, as other Christians do, you never see him go to the trough—­

MELESINDA
Unfeeling wretch! yet possibly her intentions—­

MAID For instance, Madam, my name is Finch—­Betty Finch.  I don’t whistle the more for that, nor long after canary-seed while I can get good wholesome mutton—­no, nor you can’t catch me by throwing salt on my tail.  If you come to that, hadn’t I a young man used to come after me, they said courted me—­his name was Lion—­Francis Lion, a tailor; but though he was fond enough of me, for all that, he never offered to eat me.

MELESINDA How fortunate that the discovery has been made before it was too late.  Had I listened to his deceits, and, as the perfidious man had almost persuaded me, precipitated myself into an inextricable engagement, before—­

MAID No great harm, if you had.  You’d only have bought a pig in a poke—­and what then?  Oh, here he comes creeping—­

Enter MR. H. abject.

Go to her, Mr. Hogs—­Hogs—­Hogsbristles—­what’s your name?  Don’t be afraid, man—­don’t give it up—­she’s not crying—­only summat has made her eyes red—­she has got a sty in her eye, I believe—­(going.)

MELESINDA
You are not going, Betty?

MAID
O, Madam, never mind me—­I shall be back in the twinkling of a pig’s
whisker, as they say. [Exit.]