SCENE XIII.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TATTLE.
TATT. I'll be gone.
VAL. You'll meet her.
TATT. Is there not a back way?
VAL. If there were, you have more discretion than to give Scandal
such an advantage. Why, your running away will prove all that he
can tell her.
TATT. Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous. Oh, I shall lose my
reputation of secrecy for ever. I shall never be received but upon
public days, and my visits will never be admitted beyond a drawing-
room. I shall never see a bed-chamber again, never be locked in a
closet, nor run behind a screen, or under a table: never be
distinguished among the waiting-women by the name of trusty Mr
Tattle more. You will not be so cruel?
VAL. Scandal, have pity on him; he'll yield to any conditions.
TATT. Any, any terms.
SCAN. Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good reputation
to me presently. Come, where are you familiar? And see that they
are women of quality, too--the first quality.
TATT. 'Tis very hard. Won't a baronet's lady pass?
SCAN. No, nothing under a right honourable.
TATT. Oh, inhuman! You don't expect their names?
SCAN. No, their titles shall serve.
TATT. Alas, that's the same thing. Pray spare me their titles.
I'll describe their persons.
SCAN. Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are so ill a
painter that I cannot know the person by your picture of her, you
must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write the name at the
bottom.
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