Gay, John. The Beggar's Opera
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Scene 9.

[PEACHUM, MRS. PEACHUM.]

PEACHUM.

    Dear Wife, be a little pacified, Don't let your Passion run away with your Senses. Polly, I grant you, hath done a rash thing.


MRS. PEACHUM.

    If she had had only an Intrigue with the Fellow, why the very best Families have excused and huddled up a Frailty of that sort. 'Tis Marriage, Husband, that makes it a Blemish.


PEACHUM.

    But Money, Wife, is the true Fuller's-Earth36 for Reputations, there is not a Spot or a Stain but what it can take out. A rich Rogue now-a-days is fit Company for any Gentleman; and the World, my Dear, hath not such a contempt for Roguery as you imagine. I tell you, Wife, I can make this Match turn to our Advantage.


MRS. PEACHUM.

    I am very sensible, Husband, that Captain Macheath is worth Money, but I am in doubt whether he hath not two or three Wives already, and then if he should die in a Session or two, Polly's Dower would come into a Dispute.

   



PEACHUM.

    That, indeed, is a Point which ought to be consider'd.


Air XI. -- A Soldier and a Sailor.


A Fox may steal your Hens, Sir,
A Whore your Health and Pence, Sir,
Your Daughter rob your Chest, Sir,
Your Wife may steal your Rest, Sir.
     A Thief your Goods and Plate37.
But this is all but picking38,
With Rest, Pence, Chest and Chicken;
It ever was decreed, Sir,
If Lawyer's Hand is fee'd, Sir,
He steals your whole Estate.

    The Lawyers are bitter Enemies to those in our Way. They don't care that any body should get a clandestine Livelihood but themselves.