nothing else. [Butler bows.] Have you heard of an engagement which
Count Cassel is under to any other woman than my daughter?

BUTLER. I am to tell your honour in prose?

BARON. Certainly. [Butler appears uneasy and loath to speak.]
Amelia, he does not like to divulge what he knows in presence of a
third person--leave the room. [Exit Amelia.

BUTLER. No, no--that did not cause my reluctance to speak.

BARON. What then?

BUTLER. Your not allowing me to speak in verse--for here is the poetic
poem. [Holding up a paper.]

BARON. How dare you presume to contend with my will? Tell in plain
language all you know on the subject I have named.

BUTLER. Well, then, my Lord, if you must have the account in quiet
prose, thus it was--Phoebus, one morning, rose in the East, and having
handed in the long-expected day, he called up his brother Hymen----

BARON. Have done with your rhapsody.

BUTLER. Ay; I knew you'd like it best in verse----

There lived a lady in this land,
Whose charms the heart made tingle;
At church she had not given her hand,