ore) have all conspir'd to bring me
here sooner than I am expected,--let me see--yes, I must try to find out
Frankton first. [_HUMPHRY crosses the stage._] Here, friend, honest man,
prithee stop.

HUMPHRY. What's your will?

LOVEYET. Can you inform me, friend, where one Mr. Frankton lives?

HUMPHRY. No, I don't know where anybody lives in this big city, not I; for
my part, I believe how they all lives in the street, there's such a
monstrous sight of people a scrouging backards and forards, as the old
saying is. If I was home now--

LOVEYET. Where is your home, if I may make so free?

HUMPHRY. Oh, you may make free and welcome, for the more freer the more
welcomer, as the old saying is; I never thinks myself too good to discourse
my superiors: There's some of our townsfolks now, why some of 'um isn't so
good as I, to be sure. There's Tom Forge, the blacksmith, and little Daniel
Snip, the tailor, and Roger Peg, the cobbler, and Tim Frize, the barber,
and Landlord Tipple, that keeps the ale-house at the sign of the Turk's
Head, and Jeremy Stave, the clerk of the meeting-house, why, there an't one
of 'um that's a single copper before a beggar, as the old saying is; but
what o' that? We isn't all born alike, as father says; for my part, I likes
to be friendly, so give us your hand. You mus'n't think how I casts any
reflections on you; no, no, I scorn the action. [_They shake hands._]
That's hearty now--Friendship is a fine thing, and, a friend indeed is a
friend in need, as the saying is.

LOVEYET. What an insufferable fool it is! [_Half aside._

HUMPHRY. Yes, it is insufferable cool, that's sartin; but it's time to
expect it.

LOVEYET. Worse and worse!

HUMPHRY. Yes, I warrant you it will be worser and worser before long; so I
must e'en go home soon, and look after the corn and the wheat, or else old
father will bring his pigs to a fine market, as the old proverb goes.

LOVEYET. You're quite right; you mean your father wou'd bring his corn to a
fine market: You mean it as a figurative expression, I presume.

HUMPHRY. Not I, I isn't for none of your figure expressions, d' ye see,
becase why, I never larnt to cipher;--every grain of corn a pig! Ha, ha,
ha. That's pleasant, ecod; why the Jews wou'dn't dare for to shew their
noses out o'doors, everything wou'd smell so woundily of pork! Ha, ha, ha.

LOVEYET. A comical countryman of mine this. [_Aside._] What is your name,
my honest lad?

HUMPHRY. Wh