r,--I always whistles.

_Pereg._ Come on, friend.--It seems a dreary rout: but how cheerily
the eye glances over a sterile tract, when the habitation of a
benefactor, whom we are approaching to requite, lies in the
perspective! [_Exeunt._

* * * * *

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

_A Library in the House of SIR SIMON ROCHDALE; Books
scattered on a Writing Table._

_Enter TOM SHUFFLETON._

_Shuff._ No body up yet? I thought so.

_Enter SERVANT._

Ah, John, is it you? How d'ye do, John?

_John._ Thank your honour, I----

_Shuff._ Yes, you look so. Sir Simon Rochdale in bed? Mr. Rochdale
not risen? Well! no matter; I have travelled all night, though, to
be with them. How are they?

_John._ Sir, they are both----

_Shuff._ I'm glad to hear it. Pay the postboy for me.

_John._ Yes, sir. I beg pardon, sir; but when your honour last left
us----

_Shuff._ Owed you three pound five. I remember: have you down in my
memorandums--Honourable Tom Shuffleton debtor to---- What's your
name?

_John._ My christian name, sir, is----

_Shuff._ Muggins--I recollect. Pay the postboy, Muggins. And,
harkye, take particular care of the chaise: I borrowed it of my
friend, Bobby Fungus, who sprang up a peer, in the last bundle of
Barons: if a single knob is knocked out of his new coronets, he'll
make me a sharper speech than ever he'll produce in parliament. And,
John!

_John._ Sir!

_Shuff._ What was I going to say?

_John._ Indeed, sir, I can't tell.

_Shuff._ No more can I. 'Tis the fashion to be absent--that's the
way I forgot your little bill. There, run along. [_Exit JOHN._] I've
the whirl of Bobby's chaise in my head still. Cursed fatiguing,
posting all night, through Cornish roads, to obey the summons of
friendship! Convenient, in some respects, for all that. If all
loungers, of slender revenues, like mine, could command a constant
succession of invitations, from men of estates in the country, how
amazingly it would tend to the thinning of Bond Street! [_Throws
himself into a Chair near the Writing Table._] Let me see--what has
Sir Simon been reading?--"Burn's Justice"--true; the old man's
reckoned the ablest magistrate in the county. he hasn't cut open the
leaves, I see. "Chesterfield's Letters"--pooh! his system of
education is extinct: Belcher and the Butcher have superseded it.
"Clarendon's History of----."