Scrub. Secrets! ay;—but I’ll say no more. Come, sit down, we’ll make an end of our tankard: hero—

[Gives Archer the tankard.

Arch. With all my heart; who knows but you and I may come to be better acquainted, eh? Here’s your ladies’ healths; you have three, I think, and to be sure there must be secrets among ’em.

[Drinks.

Scrub. Secrets! ay, friend.—I wish I had a friend!

Arch. Am not I your friend? come, you and I will be sworn brothers.

Scrub. Shall we?

Arch. From this minute. Give me a kiss:—and now, brother Scrub—

Scrub. And now, brother Martin, I will tell you a secret that will make your hair stand on end. You must know that I am consumedly in love.

Arch. That’s a terrible secret, that’s the truth on’t.

Scrub. That jade, Gipsy, that was with us just now in the cellar, is the arrantest whore that ever wore a petticoat; and I’m dying for love of her.

Arch. Ha! ha! ha!—Are you in love with her person or her virtue, brother Scrub?

Scrub. I should like virtue best, because it is more durable than beauty: for virtue holds good with some women long, and many a day after they have lost it.

Arch. In the country, I grant ye, where no woman’s virtue is lost, till a bastard be found.

Scrub. Ay, could I bring her to a bastard, I should have her all to myself; but I dare not put it upon that lay, for fear of being sent for a soldier. Pray, brother, how do you gentlemen in London like that same Pressing Act?

Arch. Very ill, brother Scrub; ’tis the worst that ever was made for us. Formerly I remember the good days, when we could dun our masters for our wages, and if they refused to pay us, we could have a warrant to carry ’em before a Justice: but now if we talk of eating, they have a warrant for us, and carry us before three Justices.

Scrub. And to be sure we go, if we talk of eating; for the Justices won’t give their own servants a bad example. Now this is my misfortune—I dare not speak in the house, while that jade Gipsy dings about like a fury.—Once I had the better end of the staff.

Arch. And how comes the change now?

Scrub. Why, the mother of all this mischief is a priest.

Arch. A priest!

Scrub. Ay, a damned son of a whore of Babylon, that came over hither to say grace to the French officers, and eat up our provisions. There’s not a day goes over his head without a dinner or supper in this house.

Arch. How came he so familiar in the family?