Page:Passions 2.pdf/108

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
96
THE ELECTION:

gentleman. Good blood always shews itself upon these occasions. (looking out again.) Yonder now, I could tell you, even at this distance, by that very manner of waving his pocket handkerchief that he is in a devilish quandary.

Balt. Indeed! dost thou already discover in him the disturbed gait of a frightened man? This is excellent!—Let me look! let me look! (looking thro' the hushes with great satisfaction and eagerness.) Where, Servet?

Serv. Look just between the birch-tree and the little gate.

Balt. (peevishly.) Pooh, nonsense! It is a colt feeding amongst the bushes, and lashing off the flies with his tail.

(As they are looking, enter Freeman and Jenkison behind them.)

Free. Good morning, gentlemen: I hope we have not kept you waiting.

Balt. I am here, Sir, at your request, to give you the satisfaction you require, and I have waited your time without impatience.

Free. Ah, Mr. Baltimore! it is a cruel necessity that has compell'd me to require such a meeting as this from a man to whom I owe my life. But life, with contempt and degradation in the eye of the world annex'd to it, is no benefit: you have cruelly compell'd me—

Balt. Make no apology. Sir, for the invitation you have given me to this place: it is the only one in my life that I have received from you with pleasure, and obey'd with alacrity.