Drama  |  William Wycherley  |  Country Wife  |  Act I

Country Wife — Act I (Part 11 of 11)

Horn. Come, you shall dine with us.

Pinch. I have dined already.

Horn. Come, I know thou hast not: I’ll treat thee, dear rogue; thou sha’t spend none of thy Hampshire money to-day.

Pinch. Treat me! So, he uses me already like his cuckold.

[Aside.

Horn. Nay, you shall not go.

Pinch. I must I have business at home.

Exit.

Har. To beat his wife. He’s as jealous of her as a Cheapside husband of a Convent Garden wife.

Horn. Why, ’tis as hard to find an old whoremaster without jealousy and the gout, as a young one without fear, or the pox:— As gout in age from pox in youth proceeds, So wenching past, then jealousy succeeds; The worst disease that love and wenching breeds.

[Exeunt.