_a Pawnbroker._
DAVENPORT, _in love with Marian._
PENDULOUS, _a Reprieved Gentleman._
CUTLET, _a Sentimental Butcher._
GOLDING, _a Magistrate._
WILLIAM, _Apprentice to Flint._
BEN, _Cutlet's Boy._
MISS FLYN.
BETTY, _her Maid._
MARIAN, _Daughter to Flint._
LUCY, _her Maid._

* * * * *

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_An Apartment at Flint's house._

FLINT. WILLIAM.

FLINT
Carry those umbrellas, cottons, and wearing-apparel, up stairs. You may
send that chest of tools to Robins's.

WILLIAM
That which you lent six pounds upon to the journeyman carpenter that had
the sick wife?

FLINT
The same.

WILLIAM
The man says, if you can give him till Thursday--

FLINT
Not a minute longer. His time was out yesterday. These improvident
fools!

WILLIAM
The finical gentleman has been here about the seal that was his
grandfather's.

FLINT
He cannot have it. Truly, our trade would be brought to a fine pass, if
we were bound to humour the fancies of our customers. This man would be
taking a liking to a snuff-box that he had inherited; and that
gentlewoman might conceit a favourite chemise that had descended to her.

WILLIAM
The lady in the carriage has been here crying about those jewels. She
says, if you cannot let her have them at the advance she offers, her
husband will come to know that she has pledged them.

FLINT
I have uses for those jewels. Send Marian to me. (_Exit William_.) I
know no other trade that is expected to depart from its fair advantages
but ours. I do not see the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, or, to go
higher, the lawyer, the physician, the divine, give up any of their
legitimate gains, even when the pretences of their art had failed; yet
_we_ are to be branded with an odious name, stigmatized, discountenanced
even by the administrators of those laws which acknowledge us; scowled
at by the lower sort of people, whose needs we serve!

_Enter Marian_.

Come hither, Marian. Come, kiss your father. The report runs that he is
full of spotted crime. What is your belief, child?

MARIAN
That never good report went with our calling, father. I have heard you
say, the poor look only to the advantages which we derive from them, and
overlook the accommodations which they receive from us. But the poor
_are_ the poor, father, and have little leisure to make distinctions. I
wish we could give up this bus