The Way of the World | Page 8

me:- my memory is such a memory.
MIRA. Have a care of such apologies, Witwoud; for I never knew a
fool but he affected to complain either of the spleen or his memory.
FAIN. What have you done with Petulant?

WIT. He's reckoning his money; my money it was: I have no luck
today.
FAIN. You may allow him to win of you at play, for you are sure to be
too hard for him at repartee: since you monopolise the wit that is
between you, the fortune must be his of course.
MIRA. I don't find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to be
your talent, Witwoud.
WIT. Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates.
Petulant's my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty fellow,
and has a smattering--faith and troth, a pretty deal of an odd sort of a
small wit: nay, I'll do him justice. I'm his friend, I won't wrong him.
And if he had any judgment in the world, he would not be altogether
contemptible. Come, come, don't detract from the merits of my friend.
FAIN. You don't take your friend to be over-nicely bred?
WIT. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must
own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis pity; the
fellow has fire and life.
MIRA. What, courage?
WIT. Hum, faith, I don't know as to that, I can't say as to that. Yes,
faith, in a controversy he'll contradict anybody.
MIRA. Though 'twere a man whom he feared or a woman whom he
loved.
WIT. Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We have
all our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith. Let me
excuse him,--I can defend most of his faults, except one or two; one he
has, that's the truth on't,--if he were my brother I could not acquit
him--that indeed I could wish were otherwise.
MIRA. Ay, marry, what's that, Witwoud?

WIT. Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my dear,
excuse me there.
FAIN. What, I warrant he's unsincere, or 'tis some such trifle.
WIT. No, no; what if he be? 'Tis no matter for that, his wit will excuse
that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant: one
argues a decay of parts, as t'other of beauty.
MIRA. Maybe you think him too positive?
WIT. No, no; his being positive is an incentive to argument, and keeps
up conversation.
FAIN. Too illiterate?
WIT. That? That's his happiness. His want of learning gives him the
more opportunities to show his natural parts.
MIRA. He wants words?
WIT. Ay; but I like him for that now: for his want of words gives me
the pleasure very often to explain his meaning.
FAIN. He's impudent?
WIT. No that's not it.
MIRA. Vain?
WIT. No.
MIRA. What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has
not wit enough to invent an evasion?
WIT. Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean he
never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a chambermaid, or a
woman of quality's porter. Now that is a fault.

SCENE VII.
[To them] COACHMAN.
COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?
BET. Yes.
COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.
FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!
BET. I'll tell him.
COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of
cinnamon water.
SCENE VIII.
MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD.
WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled
with wind. Now you may know what the three are.
MIRA. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance.
WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without
enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these are
trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the week, to
call on him once a day at public places.
MIRA. How!
WIT. You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no more
company here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he
used to do:- before he found out this way, I have known him call for
himself -
FAIN. Call for himself? What dost thou mean?

WIT. Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just
when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned--
whip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf and
a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door again in
a trice; where he would send in for himself; that I mean, call for himself,
wait for himself, nay, and what's more, not