respects.--Some ignorant, unpolished boor--

JESSAMY goes off and returns.

JESSAMY

Sir, the colonel is gone out, and Jonathan his servant says that he is
gone to stretch his legs upon the Mall.--Stretch his legs! what an
indelicacy of diction!

DIMPLE

Very well. Reach me my hat and sword. I'll accost him there, in my
way to Letitia's, as by accident; pretend to be struck by his person
and address, and endeavour to steal into his confidence. Jessamy, I
have no business for you at present. [Exit.

JESSAMY [taking up the book].

My master and I obtain our knowledge from the same source;--though,
gad! I think myself much the prettier fellow of the two. [Surveying
himself in the glass.] That was a brilliant thought, to insinuate that
I folded my master's letters for him; the folding is so neat, that it
does honour to the operator. I once intended to have insinuated that I
wrote his letters too; but that was before I saw them; it won't do now;
no honour there, positively.--"Nothing looks more vulgar, [reading
affectedly] ordinary, and illiberal than ugly, uneven, and ragged
nails; the ends of which should be kept even and clean, not tipped with
black, and cut in small segments of circles."--Segments of circles!
surely my lord did not consider that he wrote for the beaux. Segments
of circles; what a crabbed term! Now I dare answer that my master,
with all his learning, does not know that this means, according to the
present mode, let the nails grow long, and then cut them off even at
top. [Laughing without.] Ha! that's Jenny's titter. I protest I
despair of ever teaching that girl to laugh; she has something so
execrably natural in her laugh, that I declare it absolutely
discomposes my nerves. How came she into our house! [Calls.] Jenny!

Enter JENNY.

JESSAMY

Prythee, Jenny, don't spoil your fine face with laughing.

JENNY

Why, mustn't I laugh, Mr. Jessamy?

JESSAMY

You may smile, but, as my lord says, nothing can authorise a laugh.

JENNY

Well, but I can't help laughing.--Have you seen him, Mr. Jessamy? ha,
ha, ha!

JESSAMY

Seen whom?

JENNY

Why, Jonathan, the New England colonel's servant. Do you know he was
at the play last night, and the stupid creature don't know where he has
been. He would not go to a play for the world; he thinks it was a
show, as he calls it.

JESSAMY

As ignorant and unpolished as he is, do you know, Miss Jenny