makes way for the intrigues of another sort of an agent, who lives in the
house.

This is _Rivet_ (Mr. C. Mathews), a gentleman who undertakes to procure
for an employer anything upon earth he may want, at so much per cent.
commission. There is nothing that this very general agent cannot get hold
of, from a hack to a husband--from a boat to a baronetcy--from a
tortoise-shell tom-cat to a rich wife. Matrimonial agency is, however, his
passion, and he has plenty of indulgence for it in a Brighton
boarding-house. _Captain Pacific_ wants a wife, _Mrs. Coo_ is a widow, and
all widows want husbands. Thus _Rivet_ makes sure of a swingeing
commission from both parties; for, in imagination, and in his own
memorandum-book, he has already married them.

Here are the ingredients of the farce; and in the course of it they are
compounded in such wise as to make _Woodpecker_ jealous, merely because he
happens to find _Fanny_ in the dark, and in _Whistleborough's_ arms; to
cause the latter to negotiate with _Mrs. Coo_ for a seat in Parliament,
instead of a wedding-ring; and _Pacific_ to talk of the probable prospects
of the nuptial state to _Miss Polecon_, who is an inveterate spinster and
a political economist, professing the Malthusian creed. _Rivet_ finding
_Fanny_ and her friend are taking business out of his hands by planning an
elopement _en amateur_, gets himself "regularly called in," and manages to
save _Woodpecker_ all the trouble, by contriving that _Whistleborough_
shall run away with the young lady by mistake, so that _Woodpecker_ might
marry her, and no mistake. _Bam_ bams _Whistleborough_, who ends the piece
by threatening his deceiver with an action for breach of promise of
borough, all the other breaches having been duly made up; together with
the match between _Mrs. Coo_ and _Pacific_.