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222 WILLIAM CONGREVE [ACT n
Sir Samp. Body o'me, so do I.—Hark ye, Valentine, if
there be too much, refund the superfluity, dost hear, boy?
Val. Superfluity, sir! it will scarce pay my debts. I hope
you will have more indulgence, than to oblige me to those
hard conditions which my necessity signed to.
Sir Samp. Sir, how, I beseech you, what were you pleased
to intimate concerning indulgence?
Val. Why, sir, that you would not go to the extremity of
the conditions, but release me at hast from some part.
Sir Samp. Oh, sir, I understand you—that's all, ha?
Val. Yes, sir, all that I presume to ask;—but what you,
out of fatherly fondness, will be pleased to add shall be
doubly welcome.
Sir Samp. No doubt of it, sweet sir, but your filial piety
and my fatherly fondness would fit like two tallies.—Here's
a rogue, Brother Foresight, makes a bargain under hand
and seal in the morning, and would be released from it in
the afternoon; here's a rogue, dog, here's conscience and
honesty; this is your wit now, this is the morality of your
wits! You are a wit, and have been a beau, and may be a—
why, sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal?—can you
deny it?
Val. Sir, I don't deny it.
Sir Samp. Sirrah, you'll be hanged; I shall live to see you
go up Holburn Hill. 7 —Has he not a rogue's face?—Speak,
brother, you understand physiognomy, a hanging look to
me;—of all my boys the most unlike me; he has a damned
Tyburn-face, without the benefit o' the clergy.
Fore. Hum—truly I don't care to discourage a young
man. He has a violent death in his face; but I hope no
danger of hanging.
Val. Sir, is this usage for your son?—for that old weatherheaded
fool, I know how to laugh at him; but you, sir—
Sir Samp. You, sir; and you, sir;—why, who are you,
sir? Val. Your son, sir.
Sir Samp. That's more than I know, sir, and I believe not.
Val. Faith, I hope not.
Sir Samp. What, would you have your mother a whore!
—Did you ever hear the like! did you ever hear the like!
Body o'me—
7 Meaning on the way to Tyburn.