Scene IV The Same
Trotter. Hah! hah! Old Babolin will spoil your matrimonial scheme, my master!
Gnawer. I have decided that this marriage shall take place.
Trotter. That of course alters the matter. If you have pledged your word, Babolin must fall.
Gnawer. Yes, certainly!
Trotter. Is Babolin a weather-cock, that you can turn him at will?
Gnawer. No; he is anything but a weather-cock. It would almost take a surgical operation to get a notion out of his rat’s head when it is once there.
Trotter. [Astonished.] Is the parent of this fair girl a rat?
Gnawer. No, not exactly. He is what men call a Church Rat. He dispenses holy water at the door of Notre Dame, and sells candles to the faithful, which they piously light in honour of God and the saints.
Trotter. I know. The candles which are lit on the shrine when their owners are present, and carefully extinguished and saved when they have gone, by order of the thrifty saints perhaps. So men in their pious thrift exact a heavy percentage of profit out of holy things.
Gnawer. Come! come! You may grow indignant at your leisure. I hear Babolin approaching. Let us leave him a clear field; he might tread on us.