and then, to rub off the rust a little? There's the
two Miss Hoggs, and our neighbour Mrs. Grigsby, go to take a month's
polishing every winter.

HARDCASTLE. Ay, and bring back vanity and affectation to last them the
whole year. I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home! In
my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they
travel faster than a stage-coach. Its fopperies come down not only as
inside passengers, but in the very basket.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Ay, your times were fine times indeed; you have been
telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old
rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we
never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the
curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all
our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of
Marlborough. I hate such old-fashioned trumpery.

HARDCASTLE. And I love it. I love everything that's old: old
friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and I believe,
Dorothy (taking her hand), you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old
wife.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Lord, Mr. Hardcastle, you're for ever at your
Dorothys and your old wifes. You may be a Darby, but I'll be no Joan,
I promise you. I'm not so old as you'd make me, by more than one good
year. Add twenty to twenty, and make money of that.

HARDCASTLE. Let me see; twenty added to twenty makes just fifty and
seven.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. It's false, Mr. Hardcastle; I was but twenty when I
was brought to bed of Tony, that I had by Mr. Lumpkin, my first
husband; and he's not come to years of discretion yet.

HARDCASTLE. Nor ever will, I dare answer for him. Ay, you have
taught him finely.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. No matter. Tony Lumpkin has a good fortune. My son
is not to live by his learning. I don't think a boy wants much
learning to spend fifteen hundred a year.

HARDCASTLE. Learning, quotha! a mere composition of tricks and
mischief.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Humour, my dear; nothing but humour. Come, Mr.
Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humour.

HARDCASTLE. I'd sooner allow him a horse-pond. If burning the
footmen's shoes, frightening the maids, and worrying the kittens be
humour, he has it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig to the back
of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popt my bald head in Mrs.
Frizzle's face.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. A