TRUE: A very cheap cure, madam.
[ENTER TRUSTY.]
HAU: Ay, "tis very feasible.
MRS. OTT: My lady call"d for you, mistress Trusty: you must decide a controversy.
HAU: O, Trusty, which was it you said, your father, or your mother, that was cured with the Sick Man"s Salve?
TRUS: My mother, madam, with the Salve.
TRUE: Then it was the sick woman"s salve?
TRUS: And my father with the Groat"s-worth of Wit. But there was other means used: we had a preacher that would preach folk asleep still; and so they were prescribed to go to church, by an old woman that was their physician, thrice a week--
EPI: To sleep?
TRUS: Yes, forsooth: and every night they read themselves asleep on those books.
EPI: Good faith, it stands with great reason. I would I knew where to procure those books.
MOR: Oh!
LA-F: I can help you with one of them, mistress Morose, the Groat"s-worth of Wit.
EPI: But I shall disfurnish you, sir Amorous: can you spare it?
LA-F: O, yes, for a week, or so; I"ll read it myself to him.
EPI: No, I must do that, sir: that must be my office.
MOR: Oh, oh!
EPI: Sure he would do well enough, if he could sleep.
MOR: No, I should do well enough, if you could sleep. Have I no friend that will make her drunk? or give her a little laudanum?
or opium?
TRUE: Why, sir, she talks ten times worse in her sleep.
MOR: How!
CLER: Do you not know that, sir? never ceases all night.
TRUE: And snores like a porpoise.
MOR: O, redeem me, fate; redeem me, fate! For how many causes may a man be divorced, nephew?
DAUP: I know not, truly, sir.
TRUE: Some divine must resolve you in that, sir, or canon-lawyer.
MOR: I will not rest, I will not think of any other hope or comfort, till I know.
[EXIT WITH DAUPHINE.]
CLER: Alas, poor man!
TRUE: You"ll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this.
HAU: No, we"ll let him breathe now, a quarter of an hour or so.
CLER: By my faith, a large truce!
HAU: Is that his keeper, that is gone with him?
DAW: It is his nephew, madam.
LA-F: Sir Dauphine Eugenie.
HAU: He looks like a very pitiful knight--
DAW: As can be. This marriage has put him out of all.
LA-F: He has not a penny in his purse, madam.
DAW: He is ready to cry all this day.
LA-F: A very shark; he set me in the nick t"other night at Primero.
TRUE: How these swabbers talk!
CLER: Ay, Otter"s wine has swell"d their humours above a spring-tide.
HAU: Good Morose, let us go in again. I like your couches exceeding well; we will go lie and talk there.
[EXEUNT HAU., CEN., MAV., TRUS., LA-FOOLE, AND DAW.]
EPI [FOLLOWING THEM.]: I wait on you, madam.
TRUE [STOPPING HER.]: "Slight, I will have them as silent as signs, and their post too, ere I have done. Do you hear, lady-bride?
I pray thee now, as thou art a n.o.ble wench, continue this discourse of Dauphine within; but praise him exceedingly: magnify him with all the height of affection thou canst;--I have some purpose in"t: and but beat off these two rooks, Jack Daw and his fellow, with any discontentment, hither, and I"ll honour thee for ever.
EPI: I was about it here. It angered me to the soul, to hear them begin to talk so malepert.
TRUE: Pray thee perform it, and thou winn"st me an idolater to thee everlasting.
EPI: Will you go in and hear me do"t?