PEACHUM. What is the Wench dumb? Speak, or I'll make you plead by
squeezing out an Answer from you. Are you really bound Wife to him,
or are you only upon liking? [Pinches her.]

POLLY. Oh! [Screaming.]

MRS. PEACHUM. How the Mother is to be pitied who hath handsom
Daughters! Locks, Bolts, Bars, and Lectures of Morality are nothing
to them: They break through them all. They have as much Pleasure in
cheating a Father and Mother, as in cheating at Cards.

PEACHUM. Why, Polly, I shall soon know if you are married, by
Macheath's keeping from our House.

AIR VIII. Grim King of the Ghosts, &c.

POLLY. Can Love be control'd by Advice?
Will Cupid our Mothers obey?
Though my Heart were as frozen as Ice,
At his Flame 'twould have melted away.
When he kist me so closely he prest,
'Twas so sweet that I must have comply'd:
So I thought it both safest and best
To marry, for fear you should chide.

MRS. PEACHUM. Then all the Hopes of our Family are gone for ever and
ever!

PEACHUM. And Macheath may hang his Father and Mother-in-law, in hope
to get into their Daughter's Fortune.