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?