TATTLE, JEREMY.
TATTLE
Is not that she gone out just now?
JEREMY
Ay, sir; she's just going to the place of appointment. Ah,
sir, if you are not very faithful and close in this business, you'll
certainly be the death of a person that has a most extraordinary
passion for your honour's service.
TATTLE
Ay, who's that?
JEREMY
Even my unworthy self, sir. Sir, I have had an appetite to
be fed with your commands a great while; and now, sir, my former
master having much troubled the fountain of his understanding, it is
a very plausible occasion for me to quench my thirst at the spring
of your bounty. I thought I could not recommend myself better to
you, sir, than by the delivery of a great beauty and fortune into
your arms, whom I have heard you sigh for.
TATTLE
I'll make thy fortune; say no more. Thou art a pretty
fellow, and canst carry a message to a lady, in a pretty soft kind
of phrase, and with a good persuading accent.
JEREMY
Sir, I have the seeds of rhetoric and oratory in my head: I
have been at Cambridge.
TATTLE
Ay; 'tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an
university: but the education is a little too pedantic for a
gentleman. I hope you are secret in your nature: private, close,
ha?
JEREMY
Oh, sir, for that, sir, 'tis my chief talent: I'm as secret
as the head of Nilus.
TATTLE
Ay? Who's he, though? A privy counsellor?
JEREMY
O ignorance! [Aside.] A cunning Egyptian, sir, that with
his arms would overrun the country, yet nobody could ever find out
his head-quarters.
TATTLE
Close dog! A good whoremaster, I warrant him: --the time
draws nigh, Jeremy. Angelica will be veiled like a nun, and I must
be hooded like a friar, ha, Jeremy?
JEREMY
Ay, sir; hooded like a hawk, to seize at first sight upon the
quarry. It is the whim of my master's madness to be so dressed, and
she is so in love with him she'll comply with anything to please
him. Poor lady, I'm sure she'll have reason to pray for me, when
she finds what a happy exchange she has made, between a madman and
so accomplished a gentleman.
TATTLE
Ay, faith, so she will, Jeremy: you're a good friend to her,
poor creature. I swear I do it hardly so much in consideration of
myself as compassion to her.
JEREMY
'Tis an act of charity, sir, to save a fine woman with thirty
thousand pound from throwing herself away.
TATTLE
So 'tis, faith; I might have saved several others in my time,
but, i'gad, I could never find in my heart to marry anybody before.
JEREMY
Well, sir, I'll go and tell her my master's coming, and meet
you in half a quarter of an hour with your disguise at your own
lodgings. You must talk a little madly: she won't distinguish the
tone of your voice.
TATTLE
No, no; let me alone for a counterfeit. I'll be ready for
you.
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