| |
FACE. O, sir, you are welcome. | |
| The doctor is within a moving for you; | |
| I have had the most ado to win him to it!— | |
| He swears you’ll be the darling o’ the dice: | 4 |
| He never heard her highness dote till now. 2 | |
| Your aunt has giv’n you the most gracious words | |
| That can be thought on. | |
| DAP. Shall I see her grace? | 8 |
| FACE. See her, and kiss her too.— | |
| |
[Enter ABEL, followed by KASTRIL]
What, honest Nab! | |
| Hast brought the damask? | |
| NAB. No, sir; here’s tobacco. | 12 |
| FACE. ’Tis well done, Nab; thou’lt bring the damask too? | |
| DRUG. Yes. Here’s the gentleman, captain, Master Kastril, | |
| I have brought to see the doctor. | |
| FACE. Where’s the widow? | 16 |
| DRUG. Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come. | |
| FACE. O, is it so? Good time. Is your name Kastril, sir? | |
| KAS. Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I’d be sorry else, | |
| By fifteen hundred a year. 3 Where is this doctor? | 20 |
| My mad tobacco-boy here tells me of one | |
| That can do things. Has he any skill? | |
| FACE. Wherein, sir? | |
| KAS. To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly, | 24 |
| Upon fit terms. | |
| FACE. It seems, sir, you’re but young | |
| About the town, that can make that a question. | |
| KAS. Sir, not so young but I have heard some speech | 28 |
| Of the angry boys, 4 and seen ’em take tobacco; | |
| And in his shop; and I can take it too. | |
| And I would fain be one of ’em, and go down | |
| And practice i’ the country. | 32 |
| FACE. Sir, for the duello, | |
| The doctor, I assure you, shall inform you, | |
| To the least shadow of a hair; and show you | |
| An instrument he has of his own making, | 36 |
| Wherewith, no sooner shall you make report | |
| Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on’t | |
| Most instantly, and tell in what degree | |
| Of safety it lies, in or mortality. | 40 |
| And how it may be borne, whether in a right line, | |
| Or a half circle; or may else be cast | |
| Into an angle blunt, if not acute: | |
| And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules | 44 |
| To give and take the lie by. | |
| KAS. How! to take it? | |
| FACE. Yes, in oblique he’ll show you, or in circle; 5 | |
| But never in diameter. 6 The whole town | 48 |
| Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily | |
| At the eating academies. | |
| KAS. But does he teach | |
| Living by the wits too? | 52 |
| FACE. Anything whatever. | |
| You cannot think that subtlety but he reads it. | |
| He made me a captain. I was a stark pimp, | |
| Just o’ your standing, ’fore I met with him; | 56 |
| It’s not two months since. I’ll tell you his method: | |
| First, he will enter you at some ordinary. | |
| KAS. No, I’ll not come there: you shall pardon me. | |
| FACE. For why, sir? | 60 |
| KAS. There’s gaming there, and tricks. | |
| FACE. Why, would you be | |
| A gallant, and not game? | |
| KAS. Ay, ’twill spend a man. | 64 |
| FACE. Spend you! It will repair you when you are spent. | |
| How do they live by their wits there, that have vented | |
| Six times your fortunes? | |
| KAS. What, three thousand a year! | 68 |
| FACE. Ay, forty thousand. | |
| KAS. Are there such? | |
| FACE. Ay, sir, | |
| And gallants yet. Here’s a young gentleman | 72 |
| Is born to nothing,—[Points to DAPPER.] forty marks a year | |
| Which I count nothing:—he is to be initiated, | |
| And have a fly o’ the doctor. He will win you | |
| By unresistible luck, within this fortnight, | 76 |
| Enough to buy a barony. They will set him | |
| Upmost, at the groom porter’s, 7 all the Christmas: | |
| And for the whole year through at every place | |
| Where there is play, present him with the chair, | 80 |
| The best attendance, the best drink, sometimes | |
| Two glasses of Canary, and pay nothing; | |
| The purest linen and the sharpest knife, | |
| The partridge next his trencher: and somewhere | 84 |
| The dainty bed, in private, with the dainty. | |
| You shall ha’ your ordinaries bid for him, | |
| As playhouses for a poet; and the master | |
| Pray him aloud to name what dish he affects, | 88 |
| Which must be butter’d shrimps: and those that drink | |
| To no mouth else, will drink to his, as being | |
| The goodly president mouth of all the board. | |
| KAS. Do you not gull one? | 92 |
| FACE. ’Ods my life! Do you think it? | |
| You shall have a cast commander, (can but get | |
| In credit with a glover, or a spurrier, | |
| For some two pair of either’s ware aforehand,) | 96 |
| Will, by most swift posts, dealing [but] with him, | |
| Arrive at competent means to keep himself, | |
| His punk, and naked boy, in excellent fashion, | |
| And be admir’d for’t. | 100 |
| KAS. Will the doctor teach this? | |
| FACE. He will do more, sir: when your land is gone, | |
| (As men of spirit hate to keep earth long), | |
| In a vacation, 8 when small money is stirring, | 104 |
| And ordinaries suspended till the term, | |
| He’ll show a perspective, 9 where on one side | |
| You shall behold the faces and the persons | |
| Of all sufficient young heirs in town, | 108 |
| Whose bonds are current for commodity; 10 | |
| On th’ other side, the merchants’ forms, and others, | |
| That without help of any second broker, | |
| Who would expect a share, will trust such parcels: | 112 |
| In the third square, the very street and sign | |
| Where the commodity dwells, and does but wait | |
| To be deliver’d, be it pepper, soap, | |
| Hops, or tobacco, oatmeal, woad, or cheeses. | 116 |
| All which you may so handle, to enjoy | |
| To your own use, and never stand oblig’d. | |
| KAS. I’ faith! is he such a fellow? | |
| FACE. Why, Nab here knows him. | 120 |
| And then for making matches for rich widows, | |
| Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat’st man! | |
| He’s sent to, far and near, all over England, | |
| To have his counsel, and to know their fortunes. | 124 |
| KAS. God’s will, my suster shall see him. | |
| FACE. I’ll tell you, sir, | |
| What he did tell me of Nab. It’s a strange thing— | |
| (By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy, | 128 |
| And that same melancholy breeds worms) but pass it:— | |
| He told me, honest Nab here was ne’er at tavern | |
| But once in’s life. | |
| DRUG. Truth, and no more I was not. | 132 |
| FACE. And then he was so sick—— | |
| DRUG. Could he tell you that too? | |
| FACE. How should I know it? | |
| DRUG. In troth, we had been a shooting, | 136 |
| And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper, | |
| That lay so heavy o’ my stomach—— | |
| FACE. And he has no head | |
| To bear any wine; for what with the noise o’ the fiddlers, | 140 |
| And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants—— | |
| DRUG. My head did so ache—— | |
| FACE. And he was fain to be brought home, | |
| The doctor told me: and then a good old woman—— | 144 |
| DRUG. Yes, faith, she dwells in Seacol-lane,—did cure me, | |
| With sodden ale, and pellitory 11 o’ the wall; | |
| Cost me but twopence. I had another sickness | |
| Was worse than that. | 148 |
| FACE. Ay, that was with the grief | |
| Thou took’st for being cess’d 12 at eighteenpence, | |
| For the waterwork. | |
| DRUG. In truth, and it was like | 152 |
| T’ have cost me almost my life. | |
| FACE. Thy hair went off? | |
| DRUG. Yes, sir; ’twas done for spite. | |
| FACE. Nay, so says the doctor. | 156 |
| KAS. Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my suster; | |
| I’ll see this learned boy before I go; | |
| And so shall she. | |
| FACE. Sir, he is busy now: | 160 |
| But if you have a sister to fetch hither, | |
| Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner; | |
| And he by that time will be free. | |
| KAS. I go. [Exit.] | 164 |
| FACE. Drugger, she’s thine: the damask!—[Exit ABEL.] Subtle and I | |
| Must wrastle for her. [Aside.] Come on, Master Dapper, | |
| You see how I turn clients here away, | |
| To give your cause dispatch; ha’ you perform’d | 168 |
| The ceremonies were enjoin’d you? | |
| DAP. Yes, o’ the vinegar, | |
| And the clean shirt. | |
| FACE. ’Tis well: that shirt may do you | 172 |
| More worship than you think. Your aunt’s a-fire, | |
| But that she will not show it, t’ have a sight of you. | |
| Ha’ you provided for her grace’s servants? | |
| DAP. Yes, here are six score Edward shillings. | 176 |
| FACE. Good! | |
| DAP. And an old Harry’s sovereign. | |
| FACE. Very good! | |
| DAP. And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat, | 180 |
| Just twenty nobles. 13 | |
| FACE. O, you are too just. | |
| I would you had had the other noble in Maries. | |
| DAP. I have some Philip and Maries. | 184 |
| FACE. Ay, those same | |
| Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the doctor. | |
