While the careful mother thus exercised her talent for reprehension,
the hopeful young gentleman, with a hand in each fob, stood whistling
an opera tune, without seeming to pay the most profound regard to
his parent's reproof; and the other lady, in imitation of such a
consummate pattern, began to open upon her husband, whom she bitterly
reproached with his looseness and intemperance, demanding to know
what he had to allege in alleviation of his present misconduct. The
surprise occasioned by such an unexpected meeting, had already,
in a great measure, destroyed the effects of the wine he had
so plentifully drunk, and the first use he made of his recovered
sobriety, was to revolve within himself the motives that could
possibly induce his wife to give him the rendezvous in this manner.
As he had good reason to believe she was utterly void of jealousy, he
naturally placed this rencontre to the account of another passion;
and his chagrin was not at all impaired by the effrontery with which
she now presumed to reprimand him. He listened to her, therefore,
with a grave, or rather grim, aspect; and to the question with
which she concluded her rebuke, answered, with great composure,
"All that I have to allege, madam, is, that the bawd has committed
a mistake, in consequence of which we are both disappointed; and so,
ladies, your humble servant.
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