Mr. H. (Stopping his mouth). Ho——! the devil.  Hush.

Belvil. Why, sure it is——­

Mr. H. It is, it is your old friend Jack, that shall be nameless.

Belvil. My dear Ho——­

Mr. H. (Stopping him). Don’t name it.

Belvil. Name what?

Mr. H. My curst unfortunate name.  I have reasons to conceal it for a time.

Belvil. I understand you—­Creditors, Jack?

Mr. H. No, I assure you.

Belvil. Snapp’d up a ward, peradventure, and the whole Chancery at your heels?

Mr. H. I don’t use to travel with such cumbersome luggage.

Belvil. You ha’n’t taken a purse?

Mr. H. To relieve you at once from all disgraceful conjecture, you must know, ’tis nothing but the sound of my name.

Belvil Ridiculous! ’tis true yours is none of the most romantic; but what can that signify in a man?

Mr. H. You must understand that I am in some credit with the ladies.

Belvil. With the ladies!

Mr. H. And truly I think not without some pretensions.  My fortune—­

Belvil. Sufficiently splendid, if I may judge from your appearance.

Mr. H. My figure—­

Belvil. Airy, gay, and imposing.

Mr. H. My parts—­

Belvil. Bright.

Mr. H. My conversation—­

Belvil. Equally remote from flippancy and taciturnity.

Mr. H. But then my name—­damn my name!

Belvil. Childish!

Mr. H. Not so.  Oh, Belvil, you are blessed with one which sighing virgins may repeat without a blush, and for it change the paternal.  But what virgin of any delicacy (and I require some in a wife) would endure to be called Mrs.——?

Belvil. Ha, ha, ha! most absurd.  Did not Clementina Falconbridge, the romantic Clementina Falconbridge, fancy Tommy Potts? and Rosabella Sweetlips sacrifice her mellifluous appellative to Jack Deady?  Matilda her cousin married a Gubbins, and her sister Amelia a Clutterbuck.

Mr. H. Potts is tolerable, Deady is sufferable, Gubbins is bearable, and Clutterbuck is endurable, but Ho——­

Belvil. Hush, Jack, don’t betray yourself.  But you are really ashamed of the family-name?

Mr. H. Ay, and of my father that begot me, and my father’s father, and all their forefathers that have borne it since the Conquest.

Belvil.  But how do you know the women are so squeamish?

Mr. H.  I have tried them.  I tell you there is neither maiden of sixteen nor widow of sixty but would turn up their noses at it.  I have been refused by nineteen virgins, twenty-nine relicts, and two old maids.

Belvil.  That was hard indeed, Jack.