The Old Bachelor: A Comedy

ARAMINTA, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, _and_ BELLMOUR.

Bell. Why, you won’t hear me with patience.

Aram. What’s the matter, cousin?

Bell. Nothing, madam, only—

Belin. Prithee hold thy tongue. Lard, he has so pestered me with flames and stuff, I think I sha’n’t endure the sight of a fire this twelvemonth.

Bell. Yet all can’t melt that cruel frozen heart.

Belin. O Gad, I hate your hideous fancy—you said that once before—if you must talk impertinently, for Heaven’s sake let it be with variety; don’t come always, like the devil, wrapt in flames. I’ll not hear a sentence more, that begins with an ‘I burn’—or an ‘I beseech you, madam.’

Bell. But tell me how you would be adored. I am very tractable.

Belin. Then know, I would be adored in silence.

Bell. Humph, I thought so, that you might have all the talk to yourself. You had better let me speak; for if my thoughts fly to any pitch, I shall make villainous signs.

Belin. What will you get by that; to make such signs as I won’t understand?

Bell. Ay, but if I’m tongue-tied, I must have all my actions free to—quicken your apprehension—and I—gad let me tell you, my most prevailing argument is expressed in dumb show.