air young
schismatick, like you, if 'twere but to gain you to a better opinion
of the government.

_Pleas._ If I am not mistaken in you, too, he has works of charity
enough upon his hands already; but 'tis a willing soul, I'll warrant
him, eager upon the quarry, and as sharp as a governor of
Covent-Garden.

_Wood._ Sure this is not the phrase of your family! I thought to have
found a sanctified sister; but I suspect now, madam, that if your
mother kept a pension in your father's time, there might be some
gentleman-lodger in the house; for I humbly conceive you are of the
half-strain at least.

_Pleas._ For all the rudeness of your language, I am resolved to know
upon what voyage you are bound; your privateer of love, you Argier's
man, that cruize up and down for prize in the Straitsmouth; which of
the vessels would you snap now?

_Trick._ We are both under safe convoy, madam; a lover and a husband.

_Pleas._ Nay, for your part, you are notably guarded, I confess; but
keepers have their rooks, as well as gamesters; but they only venture
under them till they pick up a sum, and then push for themselves.

_Wood._ [_Aside._] A plague of her suspicions; they'll ruin me on that
side.

_Pleas._ So; let but little minx go proud, and the dogs in
Covent-Garden have her in the wind immediately; all pursue the scent.

_Trick._ Not to a boarding-house, I hope?

_Pleas._ If they were wise, they would rather go to a brothel-house;
for there most mistresses have left behind them their maiden-heads, of
blessed memory: and those, which would not go off in that market, are
carried about by bawds, and sold at doors, like stale flesh in
baskets. Then, for your honesty, or justness, as you call it, to your
keepers, your kept-mistress is originally a punk; and let the cat be
changed into a lady never so formally, she still retains her natural
property of mousing.

_Mrs. Brain._ You are very sharp upon the mistresses; but I hope
you'll spare the wives.

_Pleas._ Yes, as much as your husbands do after the first month of
marriage; but you requite their negligence in household-duties, by
making them husbands of the first head, ere the year be over.

_Wood._ [_Aside._] She has me there, too!

_Pleas._ And as for you, young gallant--

_Wood._ Hold, I beseech you! a truce for me.

_Pleas._ In troth, I pity you; for you have undertaken a most
difficult task,--to cozen two women, who are no babies in their art:
if you bring it abou