Wit. That! that’s his happiness—his want of learning gives him the more opportunities to shew 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 publick 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—