Nick. [Aside.] Were it not to improve my Int’rest with the Ladies, I wou’d forswear all manner of Bus’ness, and grow perfectly idle, like a Dancing-Master’s Brains.  I have been squeez’d up at the Custom-House, ’mongst Jews, Swedes, Danes, and dirty Dutchmen, that were entering Hung-Beef, ’till I’m only fit to tread Billingsgate-Key, and address those shrill Ladies, whose Italian Voices ev’ry Day charm the Streets with the deaf’ning Harmony of Place, Flounders, and New-Castle-Salmon—­I was afraid, Madam, having not seen your Ladiship these four Hours, you had quite forgot me.

La. Rod. That’s impossible, Mr. Nicknack, I never see the pretty Monkey you brought me, but I have the strongest Idea of you imaginable; but have you imported no greater Curiosities, a Monkey of one sort or other is what most People have in their Houses.  I’d have a Ship range the World on purpose to find me out some agreeable strange Creature, that was never heard of before, nor is ever to be met with again.

Nick. A Creature, Madam, which some People think unparallell’d, it may be in my, Pow’r to help your Ladiship to, but ’tis a sort of Creature that’s always sighing for a Mate, if your Ladiship likes it as well as some other Ladies have done; if I know the Creature, ’twou’d laugh and toy, and kiss and fawn upon your Ladiship beyond all Womankind.

La. Rod. Pray, Mr. Nicknack, what Species is it of?

Nick. Of Humane Species, Madam, your Ladiship shall examine it, but the Ladies turn it into what shape they please, an Ape, an Ass, a Lizard, a Squirrel, a Spaniel; most People say ’tis a Man, but the Merchant that brought it from the Cyprian Groves, calls it a Desponding Lover.

La. Rod. A Desponding Lover, Mr. Nicknack, is indeed a very strange Creature, but ’tis no Rarity, I’m pester’d with ’em at all Seasons, they are continually intruding like one’s poor Relations, more pragmatically impertinent than one’s Chaplain, and, were it possible, as impudent as one’s Footmen.

Nick. But a sincere and constant Lover your Ladiship must allow a Rarity.

La. Rod. [Aside.] I must humour this Fellow’s Vanity; he’ll make an admirable Tool to plague the Collonel—­I understand you, Mr. Nicknack, you have so pretty a way of discovering your self, ’twou’d charm any Lady, and truly I see no difference between a Gentleman educated at Merchant-Taylor’s-School, and one at Fobert’s; only at our end o’the Town, there’s a certain Forwardness in young Fellows, that a Boy of Fourteen shall pretend to practise before he understands the Rule of Three.  But what you tell me is a thing of that weight, it requires mature Deliberation, a Conflict with one’s self of a whole Age’s debating:  Marriage, ’mongst the vulgar sort, is a Joke, a meer May-Game; with People of Rank, a serious and well study’d Solemnity.