Languages & literature > Beggar's opera

42 THE BEGGAR’S OPERA.
MRIS COAXER.
We have fo many interlopers—Yet, with induftry-,
one may ftill have a little picking. I carried a filver-
flowered luteftring, and a piece of black padefOy, to
Mr Peachum’s lock butlaft week.
MRIS VIXEN.
There’s Molly Brazen hath the ogle of a rattle-fnake. :
She rivetted a linen-draper’s eye fo fall: upon her, that
he was nick’d of three pieces of cambric before he- could:
look off.
MOLLY BRAZEN.
Oh dear madam ! But fure nothing can come up
to your handling of laces ! and then you have fuch a
fweet deluding tongue ! To cheat a man is nothing; but
the woman mufl have fine parts indeed who cheats a wo¬
man J
MRIS VIXEN.
Lace, madam, lyes in a fmall compafs, and is of eafy
conveyence. But you are apt, madam, to think too
well of your friends.
MRIS COAXER.
If any woman hath more art than another, to be fure,
’tis Jenny Diver. Though her fellow be never fo agree- j
able, fiie can pick his pocket as coolly as if money were ■
her only pleuiiire. Mow that is a command of the paf-
fions uncommon in a woman !
JENNY DIVER.
I never go to the tavern with a man, but in the view j
of bufinefs. I have other hours, and other fort of men
for my pleafurc. But had I your addrefs, madam—
MACHEATH.
Have done with your compliments, ladies, and drink
about. You are not fofend of me, jenny, as you ufe to be. ^
JENNY DIVER.
’Tis not convenient, Sir, to fiiow my kindnefs among
fo many rivals. ’Tis your own choice, and not the I
warmth of my inclination, that will determine you.