Sister, adieu--Madam, your most obedient--[Exit.
CHARLOTTE
I will wait upon you to the door, brother; I have something particular to say to you.[Exit.
LETITIA, alone.
What a pair!--She the pink of flirtation, he the essence of everything that is outre and gloomy.--Ithink I have completely deceived Charlotte by my manner of speaking of Mr.Dimple; she's too much the friend of Maria to be confided in.He is certainly rendering himself disagreeable to Maria, in order to break with her and proffer his hand to me.This is what the delicate fellow hinted in our last conversation.
[Exit.
SCENE II.The Mall.
Enter JESSAMY.
Positively this Mall is a very pretty place.I hope the cits won't ruin it by repairs.To be sure, it won't do to speak of in the same day with Ranelagh or Vauxhall; however, it's a fine place for a young fellow to display his person to advantage.Indeed, nothing is lost here; the girls have taste, and I am very happy to find they have adopted the elegant London fashion of looking back, after a genteel fellow like me has passed them.--Ah! who comes here? This, by his awkwardness, must be the Yankee colonel's servant.
I'll accost him.
Enter JONATHAN.
JESSAMY
Votre tres-humble serviteur, Monsieur.I under-stand Colonel Manly, the Yankee officer, has the honour of your services.
JONATHAN
Sir!--
JESSAMY
I say, Sir, I understand that Colonel Manly has the honour of having you for a servant.
JONATHAN
Servant! Sir, do you take me for a neger,--I am Colonel Manly's waiter.
JESSAMY
A true Yankee distinction, egad, without a differ-ence.Why, Sir, do you not perform all the offices of a servant? do you not even blacken his boots?
JONATHAN
Yes; I do grease them a bit sometimes; but I am a true blue son of liberty, for all that.Father said Ishould come as Colonel Manly's waiter, to see the world, and all that; but no man shall master me.My father has as good a farm as the colonel.
JESSAMY
Well, Sir, we will not quarrel about terms upon the eve of an acquaintance from which I promise myself so much satisfaction;--therefore, sans ceremonie--JONATHAN
What?--
JESSAMY
I say I am extremely happy to see Colonel Manly's waiter.
JONATHAN
Well, and I vow, too, I am pretty considerably glad to see you; but what the dogs need of all this out-landish lingo? Who may you be, Sir, if I may be so bold?
JESSAMY
I have the honour to be Mr.Dimple's servant, or, if you please, waiter.We lodge under the same roof, and should be glad of the honour of your acquaintance.
JONATHAN
You a waiter! by the living jingo, you look so top-ping, I took you for one of the agents to Congress.
JESSAMY
The brute has discernment, notwithstanding his appearance.--Give me leave to say I wonder then at your familiarity.
JONATHAN
Why, as to the matter of that, Mr.--; pray, what's your name?
JESSAMY
Jessamy, at your service.
JONATHAN
Why, I swear we don't make any great matter of distinction in our state between quality and other folks.
JESSAMY
This is, indeed, a levelling principle.--I hope, Mr.
Jonathan, you have not taken part with the insurgents.
JONATHAN
Why, since General Shays has sneaked off and given us the bag to hold, I don't care to give my opinion; but you'll promise not to tell--put your ear this way--you won't tell?--I vow I did think the sturgeons were right.
JESSAMY
I thought, Mr.Jonathan, you Massachusetts men always argued with a gun in your hand.Why didn't you join them?
JONATHAN
Why, the colonel is one of those folks called the Shin--Shin--dang it all, I can't speak them lignum vitae words--you know who I mean--there is a com-pany of them--they wear a china goose at their button-hole--a kind of gilt thing.--Now the colonel told father and brother,--you must know there are, let me see--there is Elnathan, Silas, and Barnabas, Tabitha--no, no, she's a she--tarnation, now I have it--there's Elnathan, Silas, Barnabas, Jonathan, that's I--seven of us, six went into the wars, and I staid at home to take care of mother.Colonel said that it was a burning shame for the true blue Bunker Hill sons of liberty, who had fought Governor Hutchinson, Lord North, and the Devil, to have any hand in kicking up a cursed dust against a government which we had, every mother's son of us, a hand in making.
JESSAMY
Bravo!--Well, have you been abroad in the city since your arrival? What have you seen that is curious and entertaining?
JONATHAN
Oh! I have seen a power of fine sights.I went to see two marble-stone men and a leaden horse that stands out in doors in all weathers; and when I came where they was, one had got no head, and t'other wern't there.They said as how the leaden man was a damn'd tory, and that he took wit in his anger and rode off in the time of the troubles.
JESSAMY
But this was not the end of your excursion?
JONATHAN
Oh, no; I went to a place they call Holy Ground.
Now I counted this was a place where folks go to meeting; so I put my hymn-book in my pocket, and walked softly and grave as a minister; and when Icame there, the dogs a bit of a meeting-house could Isee.At last I spied a young gentlewoman standing by one of the seats which they have here at the doors.I took her to be the deacon's daughter, and she looked so kind, and so obliging, that I thought Iwould go and ask her the way to lecture, and--would you think it?--she called me dear, and sweeting, and honey, just as if we were married: by the living jingo, I had a month's mind to buss her.
JESSAMY
Well, but how did it end?
JONATHAN
Why, as I was standing talking with her, a parcel of sailor men and boys got round me, the snarl-headed curs fell a-kicking and cursing of me at such a tarnal rate, that I vow I was glad to take to my heels and split home, right off, tail on end, like a stream of chalk.
JESSAMY
Why, my dear friend, you are not acquainted with the city; that girl you saw was a--[whispers.]
JONATHAN
Mercy on my soul! was that young woman a harlot!--Well! if this is New-York Holy Ground, what must the Holy-day Ground be!
JESSAMY
Well, you should not judge of the city too rashly.
