ACT ONE

Enter HORNER,and QUACKfollowing him at a distance.

HORNER (aside). A quack is as fit for a pimp as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way both helpers of nature. – Well, my dear doctor, hast thou done what I desired?

QUACK. I have undone you for ever with the women, and reported you throughout the whole town as bad as an eunuch, with as much trouble as if I had made you one in earnest.

HORNER. But have you told all the midwives you know, the orange wenches at the playhouses, the city husbands, and old fumbling keepers of this end of the town? For they’ll be the readiest to report it.

QUACK. I have told all the chamber-maids, waiting-women, tire-women, and old women of my acquaintance; nay, and whispered it as a secret to ’em, and to the whisperers of Whitehall, so that you need not doubt ’twill spread, and you will be as odious to the handsome young women as –

HORNER. As the smallpox. Well –

QUACK. And to the married women of this end of the town as –

HORNER. As the great ones; nay, as their own husbands.

QUACK. And to the city dames as Aniseed Robin of filthy and contemptible memory; and they will frighten their children with your name, especially their females.

HORNER. And cry, ‘Horner’s coming to carry you away!’ I am only afraid ’twill not be believed. You told ’em ’twas by an English-French disaster, and an English-French surgeon, who has given me at once not only a cure but an antidote for the future against that damned malady, and that worse distemper, love, and all other women’s evils.

QUACK. Your late journey into France has made it the more credible, and your being here a fortnight before you appeared in public looks as if you apprehended the shame, which I wonder you do not. Well, I have been hired by young gallants to belie ’em t’other way; but you are the first would be thought a man unfit for women.

HORNER. Dear Mr Doctor, let vain rogues be contented only to be thought abler men than they are, generally ’tis all the pleasure they have, but mine lies another way.

QUACK. You take, methinks, a very preposterous way to it, and as ridiculous as if we operators in physic should put forth bills to disparage our medicaments, with hopes to gain customers.

HORNER. Doctor, there are quacks in love, as well as physic, who get but the fewer and worse patients for their boasting. A good name is seldom got by giving it oneself, and women no more than honour are compassed by bragging. Come, come, doctor, the wisest lawyer never discovers the merits of his cause till the trial. The wealthiest man conceals his riches, and the cunning gamester his play. Shy husbands and keepers, like old rooks, are not to be cheated but by a new unpractised trick. False friendship will pass now no more than false dice upon ’em; no, not in the city.

Enter BOY.

BOY. There are two ladies and a gentleman coming up.

Exit BOY.

HORNER. A pox! Some unbelieving sisters of my former acquaintance who, I am afraid, expect their sense should be satisfied of the falsity of the repo