r, gentlemen? What! Take no notice of an old friend?

PIP. Pox on it! don't talk to me, I am voweled by the Count, and
cursedly out of humour.

AC. Voweled! Prithee, Trimmer, what does he mean by that?

TRIM. Have a care, Harry, speak softly; don't show your ignorance:--If
you do, they'll bite you where-e'er they meet you; they are such cursed
curs,--the present wits.

AC. Bite me! What do you mean?

PIP. Why! Don't you know what biting is? Nay, you are in the right on
it. However, one would learn it only to defend oneself against men of
wit, as one would know the tricks of play, to be secure against the
cheats. But don't you hear, Acorn, that report, that some potentates of
the Alliance have taken care of themselves, exclusive of us?

AC. How! Heaven forbid! After all our glorious victories; all this
expense of blood and treasure!

PIP. Bite--

AC. Bite! How?

TRIM. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough; that's certain.

AC. Pox! I don't feel it--how? Where?

[_Exit_ PIP _and_ TRIMMER, _laughing._

AC. Ho! Mr. Friendly, your most humble servant; you heard what passed
between those fine gentlemen and me. Pip complained to me, that he has
been voweled; and they tell me, I am bit.

FRIEND. You are to understand, sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which
is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in
the world; and in the room of it, there are started a thousand little
inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of
it. Thus, for every character in conversation that used to please, there
is an impostor put upon you. Him whom we allowed formerly for a certain
pleasant subtilty, and natural way of giving you an unexpected hit,
called a droll, is now mimicked by a biter, who is a dull fellow, that
tells you a lie with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing him no
better than to believe him. Instead of that sort of companion, who could
rally you, and keep his countenance, till he made you fall into some
little inconsistency of behaviour, at which you yourself could laugh
with him, you have the sneerer, who will keep you company from morning
to night, to gather your follies of the day (which perhaps you commit
out of confidence in him), and expose you in the evening to all the
scorners in town. For your man of sense and free spirit, whose set of
thoughts were built upon learning, reason, and experience, you have now
an impudent creature made up of vice only, who sup