y and my honor!

Beau. It is too late,--you must marry her! and this day. I have a story
already coined, and sure to pass current. This Damas suspects thee,--he
will set the police to work!--thou wilt be detected--Pauline will
despise and execrate thee. Thou wilt be sent to the common gaol as a
swindler.

Mel. Fiend!

Beau. And in the heat of the girl's resentment (you know of what
resentment is capable) and the parents' shame, she will be induced to
marry the first that offers--even perhaps your humble servant.

Mel. You! No; that were worse--for thou hast no mercy! I will marry
her.--I will keep my oath. Quick, then, with the damnable invention
thou art hatching;--quick, if thou wouldst not have me strangle thee or
myself.

Gla. What a tiger! Too fierce for a prince; he ought to have been the
Grand Turk.

Beau. Enough--I will dispatch; be prepared.

[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.

Enter DAMAS with two swords.

Damas. Now, then, sir, the ladies are no longer your excuse. I have
brought you a couple of dictionaries; let us see if your highness can
find out the Latin for bilbo.

Mel. Away, sir! I am in no humor for jesting. Damas. I see you
understand something of the grammar; you decline the non-substantive
"small-swords" with great ease; but that won't do--you must take a
lesson in parsing.

Mel. Fool! Damas. Sir, as sons take after their mother, so the man who
calls me a fool insults the lady who bore me; there's no escape for
you--fight you shall, or--

Mel. Oh, enough! enough!--take your ground.

They fight; DAMAS is disarmed. MELNOTTE takes up the sword and returns
it to DAMAS respectfully. A just punishment to the brave soldier who
robs the state of its best property--the sole right to his valor and his
life.

Damas. Sir, you fence exceedingly well; you must be a man of honor--I
don't care a jot whether you are a prince; but a man who has carte and
tierce at his fingers' ends must be a gentleman.

Mel. [aside.] Gentleman! Ay, I was a gentleman before I turned
conspirator; for honest men are the gentlemen of Nature! Colonel, they
tell me you rose from the ranks.

Damas. I did.

Mel. And in two years!

Damas. It is true; that's no wonder in our army at present. Why the
oldest general in the service is scarcely thirty, and we have some of
two-and-twenty.

Mel. Two-and-twenty!

Damas. Yes; in the French army, now a days, promotion is not a matter of
purchase. We are all heroes, because we