n
their conversation.

LORD FROTH. True, as I'm a person of honour. For heaven's sake let us
sacrifice 'em to mirth a little. [_Enter_ BOY _and whispers_ SIR PAUL.]

SIR PAUL. Gads so.--Wife, wife, my Lady Plyant, I have a word.

LADY PLYANT. I'm busy, Sir Paul, I wonder at your impertinence.

CARE. Sir Paul, harkee, I'm reasoning the matter you know. Madam, if
your ladyship please, we'll discourse of this in the next room.

SIR PAUL. O ho, I wish you good success, I wish you good success. Boy,
tell my lady, when she has done, I would speak with her below.

SCENE X.

CYNTHIA, LORD FROTH, LADY FROTH, BRISK.

LADY FROTH. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid,
and our coachman is not amiss; you know, I may suppose the dairy in town,
as well as in the country.

BRISK. Incomparable, let me perish. But then, being an heroic poem, had
you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great; besides,
your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the
sun--and you know the sun is called Heaven's charioteer.

LADY FROTH. Oh, infinitely better; I'm extremely beholden to you for the
hint; stay, we'll read over those half a score lines again. [_Pulls out
a paper_.] Let me see here, you know what goes before,--the comparison,
you know. [_Reads_.]

For as the sun shines ev'ry day,
So of our coachman I may say.

BRISK. I'm afraid that simile won't do in wet weather; because you say
the sun shines every day.

LADY FROTH. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman,
for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather.

BRISK. Right, right, that saves all.

LADY FROTH. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he
peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day too, you know, though
we don't see him.

BRISK. Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.

LADY FROTH. Well, you shall hear. Let me see. [_Reads_.]

For as the sun shines ev'ry day,
So of our coachman I may say,
He shows his drunken fiery face,
Just as the sun does, more or less.

BRISK. That's right, all's well, all's well. 'More or less.'

LADY FROTH reads:

And when at night his labour's done,
Then too, like Heav'n's charioteer the sun:

Ay, charioteer does better.

Into the dairy he descends,
And there his whipping and his driving ends;
There he's secure from danger of a bilk,
His fare is