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[ Enter] L OVEWIT, [ with several of the] Neighbours 1
LOVE. Has there been such resort, say you? | |
| 1 NEI. Daily, sir. | |
| 2 NEI. And nightly, too. | |
| 3 NEI. Ay, some as brave as lords. | 4 |
| 4 NEI. Ladies and gentlewomen. | |
| 5 NEI. Citizens’ wives. | |
| 1 NEI. And knights. | |
| 6 NEI. In coaches. | 8 |
| 2 NEI. Yes, and oyster-women. | |
| 1 NEI. Beside other gallants. | |
| 3 NEI. Sailors’ wives. | |
| 4 NEI. Tobacco men. | 12 |
| 5 NEI. Another Pimlico! 2 | |
| LOVE. What should my knave advance, | |
| To draw this company? He hung out no banners | |
| Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen, | 16 |
| Or a huge lobster with six claws? | |
| 6 NEI. No, sir. | |
| 3 NEI. We had gone in then, sir. | |
| LOVE. He has no gift | 20 |
| Of teaching i’ the nose 3 that e’er I knew of. | |
| You saw no bills set up that promis’d cure | |
| Of agues, or the tooth-ache? | |
| 2 NEI. No such thing, sir! | 24 |
| LOVE. Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets? | |
| 5 NEI. Neither, sir. | |
| LOVE. What device should he bring forth now? | |
| I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment: | 28 |
| ’Pray God he have not kept such open house, | |
| That he had sold my hangings, and my bedding! | |
| I left him nothing else.. If he have eat ’em, | |
| A plague o’ the moth, say I! Sure he has got | 32 |
| Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging; 4 | |
| The Friar and the Nun; or the new motion 5 | |
| Of the knight’s courser and the parson’s mare; | |
| Or’t may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt | 36 |
| Upon a table, or some dog to dance. | |
| When saw you him? | |
| 1 NEI. Who, sir, Jeremy? | |
| 2 NEI. Jeremy butler? | 40 |
| We saw him not this month. | |
| LOVE. How! | |
| 4 NEI. Not these five weeks, sir. | |
| 6 NEI. These six weeks at the least. | 44 |
| LOVE. You amaze me, neighbours! | |
| 5 NEI. Sure, if your worship know not where he is, | |
| He’s slipt away. | |
| 6 NEI. Pray God he be not made away. | 48 |
| LOVE. Ha! it’s no time to question, then. Knocks at the door. | |
| 6 NEI. About | |
| Some three weeks since I heard a doleful cry, | |
| As I sat up a mending my wife’s stockings. | 52 |
| LOVE. ’Tis strange that none will answer! Did’st thou hear | |
| A cry, sayst thou? | |
| 6 NEI. Yes, sir, like unto a man | |
| That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak. | 56 |
| 2 NEI. I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o’clock | |
| Next morning. | |
| LOVE. These be miracles, or you make ’em so! | |
| A man an hour strangled, and could not speak, | 60 |
| And both you heard him cry? | |
| 3 NEI. Yes, downward, sir. | |
| Love, Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee. | |
| What trade art thou on? | 64 |
| 3 NEI. A smith, an’t please your worship. | |
| LOVE. A smith! Then lend me thy help to get this door open. | |
| 3 NEI. That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools—[Exit.] | |
| 1 NEI. Sir, best to knock again afore you break it. | 68 |
