The Way of the World
too hard for him at repartee: since you monopolise the wit that is
between you, the fortune must be his of course.
MIRA. I don’t find that Petulant confesses the superiority of wit to be
your talent, Witwoud.
WIT. Come, come, you are malicious now, and would breed debates.
Petulant’s my friend, and a very honest fellow, and a very pretty fellow,
and has a smattering—faith and troth, a pretty deal of an odd sort of a
small wit: nay, I’ll do him justice. I’m his friend, I won’t wrong him.
And if he had any judgment in the world, he would not be altogether
contemptible. Come, come, don’t detract from the merits of my friend.
FAIN. You don’t take your friend to be over-nicely bred?
WIT. No, no, hang him, the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own;
no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:—’tis pity; the
fellow has fire and life.
MIRA. What, courage?
WIT. Hum, faith, I don’t know as to that, I can’t say as to that. Yes,
faith, in a controversy he’ll contradict anybody.
MIRA. Though ’twere a man whom he feared or a woman whom he loved.
WIT. Well, well, he does not always think before he speaks. We have all
our failings; you are too hard upon him, you are, faith. Let me excuse
him,—I can defend most of his faults, except one or two; one he has,
that’s the truth on’t,—if he were my brother I could not acquit him—that
indeed I could wish were otherwise.
MIRA. Ay, marry, what’s that, Witwoud?
WIT. Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my dear,
excuse me there.
FAIN. What, I warrant he’s unsincere, or ’tis some such trifle.
WIT. No, no; what if he be? ’Tis no matter for that, his wit will
excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant: one
argues a decay of parts, as t’other of beauty.
MIRA. Maybe you think him too positive?
WIT. No, no; his being positive is an incentive to argument, and keeps
up conversation.
FAIN. Too illiterate?
WIT. That? That’s his happiness. His want of learning gives him the
more opportunities to show his natural parts.
MIRA. He wants words?
WIT. Ay; but I like him for that now: for his want of words gives me the
pleasure very often to explain his meaning.
FAIN. He’s impudent?
WIT. No that’s not it.
MIRA. Vain?
WIT. No.
MIRA. What, he speaks unseasonable truths sometimes, because he has not
wit enough to invent an evasion?
WIT. Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean he
never speaks truth at all, that’s all. He will lie like a chambermaid,
or a woman of quality’s porter. Now that is a fault.
SCENE VII.
[_To them_] COACHMAN.
COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?
BET. Yes.
COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.
FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!
BET. I’ll tell him.
COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon
water.
SCENE VIII.
MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD.
WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled with
wind. Now you may know what the three are.
MIRA. You are very free with your friend’s acquaintance.
WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without
enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these are
trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the week, to call
on him once a day at public places.
MIRA. How!
WIT. You shall see he won’t go to ’em because there’s no more company
here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he used to
do:—before he found out this way, I have known him call for himself—
FAIN. Call for himself? What dost thou mean?
WIT. Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just when
you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned—whip he was
gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf and a mask, slap
into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door again in a trice;
where he would send in for himself; that I mean, call for himself, wait
for himself, nay, and what’s more, not finding himself, sometimes leave a
letter for himself.
MIRA. I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he waits for
himself now, he is so long a coming; oh, I ask his pardon.
SCENE IX.
PETULANT, MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD, BETTY.
BET. Sir, the coach stays.
PET. Well, well, I come. ’Sbud, a man had as good be a professed
midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up and
raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on ’em, I won’t come. D’ye
hear, tell ’em I won’t come. Let ’em snivel and cry their hearts out.
FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.
PET. All’s one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel.
MIRA. I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this
rate.
PET. Condition? Condition’s a dried fig, if I am not in humour. By
this hand, if they were your—a—a—your what-d’ee-call-’ems themselves,
they must wait or rub off, if I want appetite.
MIRA. What-d’ee-call-’ems! What are they, Witwoud?
WIT. Empresses, my dear. By your what-d’ee-call-’ems he means Sultana
Queens.
PET. Ay, Roxolanas.
MIRA. Cry you mercy.
FAIN. Witwoud says they are—
PET. What does he say th’are?
WIT. I? Fine ladies, I say.
PET. Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations—two
co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves cater-wauling better
than a conventicle.
WIT. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off. Ha,
ha, ha! Gad, I can’t be angry with him, if he had said they were my
mother and my sisters.
MIRA. No?
WIT. No; the rogue’s wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear
Petulant.
BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.
PET. Enough, let ’em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.
FAIN. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have
something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and swear
he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.
MIRA. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I
shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that business.
PET. Ay, ay, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.
MIRA. Meaning mine, sir?
PET. Not I—I mean nobody—I know nothing. But there are uncles and
nephews in the world—and they may be rivals. What then? All’s one for
that.
MIRA. How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall call
your interpreter.
PET. Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you not,
lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort’s?
MIRA. True.
PET. Why, that’s enough. You and he are not friends; and if he should
marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha!
MIRA. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?
PET. All’s one for that; why, then, say I know something.
MIRA. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make love to
my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my uncle?
PET. I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash.
Snug’s the word; I shrug and am silent.
MIRA. Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women’s
secrets. What, you’re a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant’s last
night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or me? Tell
me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit, Petulant, Tony
Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would show as dim by thee as
a dead whiting’s eye by a pearl of orient; he would no more be seen by
thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I’m sure thou wo’t tell me.
PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?
MIRA. Faith, I’ll do what I can for thee, and I’ll pray that heav’n may
grant it thee in the meantime.
PET. Well, harkee.
FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a
lover.
WIT. Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for my
part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should—harkee—to
tell you a secret, but let it go no further between friends, I shall
never break my heart for her.
FAIN. How?
WIT. She’s handsome; but she’s a sort of an uncertain woman.
FAIN. I thought you had died for her.
WIT. Umh—no—
FAIN. She has wit.
WIT. ’Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I should
hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is not so sure
of her as he thinks for.
FAIN. Why do you think so?
WIT. We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of an
uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him and the
best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my
Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates Mirabell worse than a
quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether
this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were
items of such a treaty being in embryo; and if it should come to life,
poor Mirabell would be in some sort unfortunately fobbed, i’faith.
FAIN. ’Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.
WIT. Faith, my dear, I can’t tell; she’s a woman and a kind of a
humorist.
MIRA. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?
PET. The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer.
Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.
MIRA. I thought you had been the greatest favourite.
PET. Ay, tête-à-tête; but not in public, because I make remarks.
MIRA. You do?
PET. Ay, ay, pox, I’m malicious, man. Now he’s soft, you know, they are
not in awe of him. The fellow’s well bred, he’s what you call a—what
d’ye-call-’em—a fine gentleman, but he’s silly withal.
MIRA. I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires. Fainall,
are you for the Mall?
FAIN. Ay, I’ll take a turn before dinner.
WIT. Ay, we’ll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being there.
MIRA. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir Wilfull’s
arrival.
WIT. No, no, he comes to his aunt’s, my Lady Wishfort; pox on him, I
shall be troubled with him too; what shall I do with the fool?
PET. Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so have
but one trouble with you both.
WIT. O rare Petulant, thou art as quick as fire in a frosty morning;
thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we’ll be very severe.
PET. Enough; I’m in a humour to be severe.
MIRA. Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be accessory
to your putting the ladies out of countenance with your senseless
ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass by you, and when
you have made a handsome woman blush, then you think you have been
severe.
PET. What, what? Then let ’em either show their innocence by not
understanding what they hear, or else show their discretion by not
hearing what they would not be thought to understand.
MIRA. But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou ought’st to
be most ashamed thyself when thou hast put another out of countenance?
PET. Not I, by this hand: I always take blushing either for a sign of
guilt or ill-breeding.
MIRA. I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that you
may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your practice.
Where modesty’s ill manners, ’tis but fit
That impudence and malice pass for wit.
ACT II.—SCENE I.
_St. James’s Park_.
MRS. FAINALL _and_ MRS. MARWOOD.
MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we must find the
means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in extremes;