[To them] WITWOUD.
WIT. Afford me your compassion, my dears; pity me, Fainall, Mirabell, pity me.
MIRA. I do from my soul. FAIN. Why, what's the matter? WIT. No letters for me, Betty?
BET. Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir? WIT. Ay; but no other?
BET. No, sir.
WIT. That's hard, that's very hard. A messenger, a mule, a beast of burden, he has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, as heavy as a panegyric in a funeral sermon, or a copy of commendatory verses from one poet to another. And what's worse, 'tis as sure a forerunner of the author as an epistle dedicatory.
MIRA. A fool, and your brother, Witwoud?
WIT. Ay, ay, my half-brother. My half-brother he is, no nearer, upon honour.
MIRA. Then 'tis possible he may be but half a fool.
WIT. Good, good, Mirabell, LE DROLE! Good, good, hang him, don't let's talk of him.--Fainall, how does your lady? Gad, I say anything in the world to get this fellow out of my head. I beg pardon that I should ask a man of pleasure and the town a question at once so foreign and domestic. But I talk like an old maid at a marriage, I don't know what I say: but she's the best woman in the world.
FAIN. 'Tis well you don't know what you say, or else your commendation would go near to make me either vain or jealous.
WIT. No man in town lives well with a wife but Fainall. Your judgment, Mirabell?
MIRA. You had better step and ask his wife, if you would be credibly informed.
WIT. Mirabell! MIRA. Ay.
WIT. My dear, I ask ten thousand pardons. Gad, I have forgot what I was going to say to you.