The Blunderer | Page 9

offends you so much. Henceforth you shall have no occasion to complain of my zeal. Yes, you shall have my master, I promise you.
HIPP. My good Mascarille, be not in such a passion. I judged you ill; I was wrong; I confess I was. (_Pulls out her purse_). But I intend to atone for my fault with this. Could you find it in your heart to abandon me thus?
MASC. No, I cannot, do what I will. But your impetuosity was very shocking. Let me tell you that nothing offends a noble mind so much as the smallest imputation upon its honour.
HIPP. It is true; I treated you to some very harsh language, but here are two louis to heal your wounds.
MASC. Oh! all this is nothing. I am very sensitive on this point; but my passion begins to cool a little already. We must bear with the failings of our friends.
HIPP. Can you, then, bring about what I so earnestly wish for? Do you believe your daring projects will be as favourable to my passion as you imagine?
MASC. Do not make yourself uneasy on that account. I have several irons in the fire, and though this stratagem should fail us, what this cannot do, another shall.
HIPP. Depend upon it, Hippolyta will at least not be ungrateful.
MASC. It is not the hope of gain that makes me act.
HIPP. Your master beckons and wishes to speak with you. I will leave you, but remember to do what you can for me.

SCENE XI.--LELIO, MASCARILLE.
LEL. What the deuce are you doing there? You promised to perform wonders, but I am sure your dilatory ways are unparalleled. Had not my good genius inspired me, my happiness had been already wholly overthrown. There was an end to my good fortune, my joy. I should have been a prey to eternal grief; in short, had I not gone to this place in the very nick of time, Anselmo would have got possession of the captive, and I should have been deprived of her. He was carrying her home, but I parried the thrust, warded off the blow, and so worked upon Trufaldin's fears as to make him keep the girl.
MASC. This is the third time! When we come to ten we will score. It was by my contrivance, incorrigible scatterbrains, that Anselmo undertook this desirable purchase; she should have been placed into my own hands, but your cursed officiousness knocks everything on the head again. Do you think I shall still labour to serve your love? I would sooner a hundred times become a fat old woman, a dolt, a cabbage, a lantern, a wehrwolf, and that Satan should twist your neck!
LEL. (Alone.) I must take him to some tavern and let him vent his passion on the bottles and glasses.

ACT II.

SCENE I.--LELIO, MASCARILLE.
MASC. I have at length yielded to your desires. In spite of all my protestations I could hold out no longer; I am going to venture upon new dangers, to promote your interest, which I intended to abandon. So tender-hearted am I! If dame nature had made a girl of Mascarille, I leave you to guess what would have happened. However, after this assurance, do not deal a back stroke to the project I am about to undertake; do not make a blunder and frustrate my expectations. Then, as to Anselmo, we shall anew present your excuses to him, in order to get what we desire. But should your imprudence burst forth again hereafter, then you may bid farewell to all the trouble I take for the object of your passion.
LEL. No, I shall be careful, I tell you; never fear; you shall see....
MASC. Well, mind that you keep your word. I have planned a bold stratagem for your sake. Your father is very backward in satisfying all your wishes by his death. I have just killed him (in words, I mean); I have spread a report that the good man, being suddenly smitten by a fit of apoplexy, has departed this life. But first, so that I might the better pretend he was dead, I so managed that he went to his barn. I had a person ready to come and tell him that the workmen employed on his house accidentally discovered a treasure, in digging the foundations. He set out in an instant, and as all his people, except us two, have gone with him into the country, I shall kill him to-day in everybody's imagination and produce some image which I shall bury under his name. I have already told you what I wish you to do; play your part well; and as to the character I have to keep up, if you perceive that I miss one word of it, tell me plainly I am nothing but a fool.

SCENE II.--LELIO,