 Justiniano is disguised as a tutor called Parenthesis who is teaching the wives their letters; in fact he facilitates contact between the wives and the gallants.The group forms a plan to evade the three husbands for an outing to Brentford (in the play it is called "Brainford"), west of London, upstream on the Thames.Their excuse is that the Tenterhooks' child, staying with his wetnurse in Brentford, is ill, and the women are rushing off to tend him.