Lop. Truly, sir, I think that a little sleep once in a week or so——

Don Ferd. Peace, fool! don’t mention sleep to me.

Lop. No, no, sir, I don’t mention your lowbred, vulgar, sound sleep; but I can’t help thinking that a gentle slumber, or half an hour’s dozing, if it were only for the novelty of the thing——

Don Ferd. Peace, booby, I say!—Oh Clara dear, cruel disturber of my rest!

Lop. And of mine too.

[Aside.

Don Ferd. ’Sdeath, to trifle with me at such a juncture as this!—now to stand on punctilios!—Love me! I don’t believe she ever did.

Lop. Nor I either.

[Aside.

Don Ferd. Or is it, that her sex never know their desires for an hour together?

Lop. Ah, they know them oftener than they’ll own them.

[Aside.

Don Ferd. Is there, in the world, so inconsistent a creature as Clara?

Lop. I could name one.

[Aside.

Don Ferd. Yes; the tame fool who submits to her caprice.

Lop. I thought he couldn’t miss it.

[Aside.

Don Ferd. Is she not capricious, teasing, tyrannical, obstinate, perverse, absurd? ay, a wilderness of faults and follies; her looks are scorn, and her very smiles—’Sdeath! I wish I hadn’t mentioned her smiles; for she does smile such beaming loveliness, such fascinating brightness—Oh, death and madness! I shall die if I lose her.

Lop. Oh, those damned smiles have undone all!

[Aside.

Air—Don Ferd.

Could I her faults remember,
    Forgetting every charm,
Soon would impartial reason
    The tyrant love disarm:
But when enraged I number
    Each failing of her mind,
Love still suggests each beauty,
    And sees—while reason’s blind.

Lop. Here comes Don Antonio, sir.

Don Ferd. Well, go you home—I shall be there presently.

Lop Ah, those cursed smiles!