Fag. So, so, ma’am! I humbly beg pardon.

Lucy. O Lud! now, Mr. Fag, you flurry one so.

Fag. Come, come, Lucy, here’s no one by—so a little less simplicity, with a grain or two more sincerity, if you please.—You play false with us, madam.—I saw you give the baronet a letter.— My master shall know this—and if he don’t call him out, I will.

Lucy. Ha! ha! ha! you gentlemen’s gentlemen are so hasty. That letter was from Mrs. Malaprop, simpleton.—She is taken with Sir Lucius’s address.

Fag. How! what tastes some people have!—Why, I suppose I have walked by her window a hundred times.—But what says our young lady? any message to my master?

Lucy. Sad news. Mr. Fag.—A worse rival than Acres! Sir Anthony Absolute has proposed his son.

Fag. What, Captain Absolute?

Lucy. Even so—I overheard it all.

Fag. Ha! ha! ha! very good, faith. Good bye, Lucy, I must away with this news.

Lucy. Well, you may laugh—but it is true, I assure you.— [Going.] But Mr. Fagg, tell your master not to be cast down by this.

Fag. Oh, he’ll be so disconsolate!

Lucy. And charge him not to think of quarrelling with young Absolute.

Fag. Never fear! never fear!

Lucy. Be sure—bid him keep up his spirits.

Fag. We will—we will.

[Exeunt severally.