LUCY
The deuce it did! and what, if I may be so bold, might be the subject of
your Night Thoughts?

CUTLET The distresses of my fellow creatures.  I never lay my head down on my pillow, but I fall a thinking, how many at this very instant are perishing.  Some with cold—­

LUCY
What, in the midst of summer?

CUTLET
Aye.  Not here, but in countries abroad, where the climate is different
from ours.  Our summers are their winters, and vice versa, you know. 
Some with cold—­

LUCY
What a canting rogue it is!  I should like to trump up some fine story to
plague him. [Aside.]

CUTLET
Others with hunger—­some a prey to the rage of wild beasts—­

LUCY
He has got this by rote, out of some book.

CUTLET
Some drowning, crossing crazy bridges in the dark—­some by the violence
of the devouring flame—­

LUCY
I have it.—­For that matter, you need not send your humanity a
travelling, Mr. Cutlet.  For instance, last night—­

CUTLET
Some by fevers, some by gun-shot wounds—­

LUCY
Only two streets off—­

CUTLET
Some in drunken quarrels—­

LUCY
(Aloud.) The butcher’s shop at the corner.

CUTLET
What were you saying about poor Cleaver?

LUCY
He has found his ears at last. (Aside.) That he has had his house
burnt down.

CUTLET
Bless me!

LUCY
I saw four small children taken in at the green grocer’s.

CUTLET
Do you know if he is insured?

LUCY
Some say he is, but not to the full amount.

CUTLET Not to the full amount—­how shocking!  He killed more meat than any of the trade between here and Carnaby market—­and the poor babes—­four of them you say—­what a melting sight!—­he served some good customers about Marybone—­I always think more of the children in these cases than of the fathers and mothers—­Lady Lovebrown liked his veal better than any man’s in the market—­I wonder whether her ladyship is engaged—­I must go and comfort poor Cleaver, however.—­[Exit.]

LUCY Now is this pretender to humanity gone to avail himself of a neighbour’s supposed ruin to inveigle his customers from him.  Fine feelings!—­pshaw! [Exit.]

(Re-enter Cutlet.)

CUTLET What a deceitful young hussey! there is not a word of truth in her.  There has been no fire.  How can people play with one’s feelings so!—­(sings)—­“For tenderness formed”—­No, I’ll try the air I made upon myself.  The words may compose me—­(sings).

        A weeping Londoner I am,
        A washer-woman was my dam;
        She bred me up in a cock-loft,
        And fed my mind with sorrows soft: 

        For when she wrung with elbows stout
        From linen wet the water out,—­
        The drops so like to tears did drip,
        They gave my infant nerves the hyp.