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BOX AND COX.
21
| Box. | [Snatching letter—starts.] Gracious goodness! |
| Cox. | [Taking letter again.] "Margate—May the 4th. Sir,—I hasten to convey to you the intelligence of a melancholy accident, which has bereft you of your intended wife." He means your intended! |
| Box. | No, yours! However, it's perfectly immaterial—but she unquestionably was yours. |
| Cox. | How can that be? You propossd to her first! |
| Box. | Yes, but then you—now don't let us begin again—Go on. |
| Cox. | [Resuming letter.] "Poor Mrs. Wiggins went out for a short excursion in a sailing boat—a sudden and violent squall soon after took place, which, it is supposed, upset her, as she was found, two days afterwards, keel upwards." |
| Box. | Poor woman! |
| Cox. | The boat, sir! [Reading.] "As her man of business, I immediately proceeded to examine her papers, amongst which I soon discovered her will; the following extract from which will, I have no doubt, be satisfactory to you. 'I hereby bequeath my entire property to my intended husband.'" Excellent, but unhappy creature! [Affected.] |
| Box. | Generous, ill-fated being! [Affected.] |
| Cox. | And to think that I tossed up for such a woman! |
| Box. | When I remember that I staked such a treasure on the hazard of a die! |
| Cox. | I'm sure, Mr. Box, I can't sufficiently thank you for your sympathy. |
| Box. | And I'm sure, Mr. Cox, you couldn't feel more, if she had been your own intended! |
| Cox. | If she'd been my own intended? She was my own intended! |
| Box. | Your intended? Come, I like that! Didn't you very properly observe just now, sir, that I proposed to her first? |
| Cox. | To which you very sensibly replied, that you'd come to an untimely end. |
| Box. | I deny it! |
| Cox. | I say you have! |
| Box. | The fortune's mine! |
| Cox. | Mine! |
| Box. | I'll have it! |
