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_ ACT II SCENE I
A Library in the House of SIR SIMON ROCHDALE; Books scattered on a Writing Table.
Enter TOM SHUFFLETON.
SHUFF. No body up yet? I thought so.
Enter SERVANT.
Ah, John, is it you? How d'ye do, John?
JOHN.
Thank your honour, I----
SHUFF.
Yes, you look so. Sir Simon Rochdale in bed? Mr. Rochdale not risen?
Well! no matter; I have travelled all night, though, to be with them.
How are they?
JOHN.
Sir, they are both----
SHUFF.
I'm glad to hear it. Pay the postboy for me.
JOHN.
Yes, sir. I beg pardon, sir; but when your honour last left us----
SHUFF.
Owed you three pound five. I remember: have you down in my memorandums
--Honourable Tom Shuffleton debtor to---- What's your name?
JOHN.
My christian name, sir, is----
SHUFF.
Muggins--I recollect. Pay the postboy, Muggins. And, harkye, take
particular care of the chaise: I borrowed it of my friend, Bobby
Fungus, who sprang up a peer, in the last bundle of Barons: if a
single knob is knocked out of his new coronets, he'll make me a
sharper speech than ever he'll produce in parliament. And, John!
JOHN. Sir!
SHUFF. What was I going to say?
JOHN.
Indeed, sir, I can't tell.
SHUFF.
No more can I. 'Tis the fashion to be absent
--that's the way I forgot your little bill. There, run along.
[Exit JOHN.]
I've the whirl of Bobby's chaise in my head still. Cursed fatiguing, posting all night, through Cornish roads, to obey the summons of friendship! Convenient, in some respects, for all that. If all loungers, of slender revenues, like mine, could command a constant succession of invitations, from men of estates in the country, how amazingly it would tend to the thinning of Bond Street!
[Throws himself into a Chair near the Writing Table.]
Let me see--what has Sir Simon been reading?--"Burn's Justice"--true; the old man's reckoned the ablest magistrate in the county. he hasn't cut open the leaves, I see. "Chesterfield's Letters"--pooh! his system of education is extinct: Belcher and the Butcher have superseded it. "Clarendon's History of----."
[Enter SIR SIMON ROCHDALE.]
SIR SIMON.
Ah, my dear Tom Shuffleton!
SHUFF.
Baronet! how are you?
SIR SIMON.
Such expedition is kind now! You got my letter at Bath, and----
SHUFF.
Saw it was pressing:--here I am.
Cut all my engagements for you, and came off like a shot.
SIR SIMON.
Thank you: thank you, heartily!
SHUFF.
Left every thing at sixes and sevens.
SIR SIMON.
Gad, I'm sorry if----
SHUFF.
Don't apologize;--nobody does, now.
Left all my bills, in the place, unpaid.
SIR SIMON.
Bless me! I've made it monstrous inconvenient!
SHUFF.
Not a bit--I give you my honour,
I did'nt find it inconvenient at all. How is Frank Rochdale?
SIR SIMON.
Why, my son is'nt up yet; and before he's stirring,
do let me talk to you, my dear Tom Shuffleton!
I have something near my heart, that--
SHUFF.
Don't talk about your heart, Baronet;--feeling's quite out of fashion.
SIR SIMON.
Well, then, I'm interested in----
SHUFF.
Aye, stick to that. We make a joke of the heart, now-a-days;
but when a man mentions his interest, we know he's in earnest.
SIR SIMON.
Zounds! I am in earnest.
Let me speak, and call my motives what you will.
SHUFF.
Speak--but don't be in a passion. We are always cool at the clubs:
the constant habit of ruining one another, teaches us temper. Explain.
SIR SIMON.
Well, I will. You know, my dear Tom, how much
I admire your proficiency in the New school of breeding;
--you are, what I call, one of the highest finished
fellows of the present day.
SHUFF.
Psha! Baronet; you flatter.
SIR SIMON.
No, I don't; only in extolling the merits of the newest fashion'd
manners and morals, I am sometimes puzzled, by the plain gentlemen,
who listen to me, here in the country, most consumedly.
SHUFF.
I don't doubt it.
SIR SIMON.
Why, 'twas but t'other morning, I was haranguing old Sir Noah Starchington,
in my library, and explaining to him the shining qualities of a dasher,
of the year eighteen hundred and three; and what do you think he did?
SHUFF.
Fell asleep.
SIR SIMON.
No; he pull'd down an English dictionary; when (if you'll believe me!
he found my definition of stylish living, under the word "insolvency;"
a fighting crop turn'd out a "dock'd bull dog;" and modern gallantry,
"adultery and seduction."
SHUFF.
Noah Starchington is a damn'd old twaddler.--But the fact is,
Baronet, we improve. We have voted many qualities to be virtues,
now, that they never thought of calling virtues formerly.
The rising generation wants a new dictionary, damnably.
SIR SIMON.
Deplorably, indeed! You can't think, my dear Tom, what a scurvy
figure you, and the dashing fellows of your kidney, make in the
old ones. But you have great influence over my son Frank;
and want you to exert it. You are his intimate--you come here,
and pass two or three months at a time, you know.
SHUFF.
Yes--this is a pleasant house.
SIR SIMON.
You ride his horses, as if they were your own.
SHUFF.
Yes--he keeps a good stable.
SIR SIMON.
You drink our claret with him, till his head aches.
SHUFF.
Your's is famous claret, Baronet.
SIR SIMON.
You worm out his secrets: you win his money; you----.
In short, you are----
SHUFF.
His friend, according to the next new dictionary.
That's what you mean, Sir Simon.
SIR SIMON.
Exactly.--But, let me explain. Frank, if he doesn't play the fool,
and spoil all, is going to be married.
SHUFF.
To how much?
SIR SIMON.
Damn it, now, how like a modern man of the world that is!
Formerly they would have asked to who.
SHUFF.
We never do, now;--fortune's every thing. We say, "a good match,"
at the west end of the town, as they say "a good man," in the city;
--the phrase refers merely to money. Is she rich?
SIR SIMON.
Four thousand a-year.
SHUFF.
What a devilish desirable woman! Frank's a happy dog!
SIR SIMON.
He's a miserable puppy. He has no more notion, my dear Tom,
of a modern "good match," than Eve had of pin money.
SHUFF.
What are his objections to it?
SIR SIMON.
I have smoked him; but he doesn't know that;
--a silly, sly amour, in another quarter.
SHUFF.
An amour! That's a very unfashionable reason for declining matrimony.
SIR SIMON.
You know his romantic flights. The blockhead, I believe,
is so attach'd, I shou'dn't wonder if he flew off at a tangent,
and married the girl that has bewitch'd him.
SHUFF.
Who is she?
SIR SIMON.
She--hem!--she lives with her father, in Penzance.
SHUFF.
And who is he?
SIR SIMON.
He----upon my soul I'm asham'd to tell you.
SHUFF.
Don't be asham'd; we never blush at any thing, in the New School.
SIR SIMON.
Damn me, my dear Tom, if he isn't a brazier!
SHUFF.
The devil!
SIR SIMON.
A dealer in kitchen candlesticks,
coal skuttles, coppers, and cauldrons.
SHUFF.
And is the girl pretty?
SIR SIMON.
So they tell me;--a plump little devil, as round as a tea kettle.
SHUFF.
I'll be after the brazier's daughter, to-morrow.
SIR SIMON.
But you have weight with him. Talk to him, my dear Tom
--reason with him; try your power, Tom, do!
SHUFF.
I don't much like plotting with the father against the son
--that's reversing the New School, Baronet.
SIR SIMON.
But it will serve Frank: it will serve me, who wish to serve you.
And to prove that I do wish it, I have been keeping something in
embryo for you, my dear Tom Shuffleton, against your arrival.
SHUFF.
For me?
SIR SIMON.
When you were last leaving us, if you recollect, you mention'd, in
a kind of a way, a--a sort of an intention of a loan, of an odd
five hundred pounds.
SHUFF.
Did I? I believe I might.
--When I intend to raise money, I always give my friends the preference.
SIR SIMON.
I told you I was out of cash then, I remember.
SHUFF.
Yes: that's just what I told you, I remember.
SIR SIMON.
I have the sum floating by me, now, and much at your service.
[Presenting it.]
SHUFF.
Why, as it's lying idle, Baronet, I--I--don't much care if I employ it.
[Taking it.]
SIR SIMON.
Use your interest with Frank, now.
SHUFF.
Rely on me.--Shall I give you my note?
SIR SIMON.
No, my dear Tom, that's an unnecessary trouble.
SHUFF.
Why that's true--with one who knows me so well as you.
SIR SIMON.
Your verbal promise to pay, is quite as good.
SHUFF.
I'll see if Frank's stirring.
[Going.]
SIR SIMON.
And I must talk to my steward.
[Going.]
SHUFF.
Baronet!
SIR SIMON.
[Returning.]
Eh?
SHUFF.
Pray, do you employ the phrase, "verbal promise to pay,"
according to the reading of old dictionaries, or as it's
the fashion to use it at present.
SIR SIMON.
Oh, damn it, chuse your own reading, and I'm content.
[Exeunt severally.] _
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