The Locksmith: A Comic Opera (1770) - Page 17

Let us set to work;

Strike, strike,

Courage;

Let us advance

Our work;

Stronger,

Still stronger:

May this spring

Serve to cage

All the suitors

Who come in here.

Courage, etc.

ELOY, alone.

(Here Nicole appears without being seen, and observes them.)

I laugh at it in advance,

How surprised they will be,

When they are caught!

They will have the reward

For their insolence.

(Nicole retreats, biting the tip of her finger.) Biting the finger was a common stage gesture in 18th-century theater to indicate that a character is worried, plotting, or has realized a secret.

Come, come,

Strike, strike,

Courage;

Let us finish

Our work.

ELOY.

That is finished just at the right time; let us try it now. Good, it works like a charm; hold it steady, while I go fetch the cord that attaches to the other side, to fasten it here. (He enters the cabinet, and says as he leaves.) Everything is well arranged, let us close the door. Go into the hornbeam grove original: "charmille"; a walkway or hedge made of hornbeam trees, popular in formal 18th-century gardens for providing shade and privacy., Guillaume. What are you looking for?

GUILLAUME.

My bread.

ELOY.

You speak of nothing but your bread; there it is on the...