s in
more fasting days than he should do, because he would
utter his father's dried stockfish.

PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish
else: here is Signior Matheo.

[ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA,
STEPHANO, MUSCO.]

Now must I look out for a messenger to my master.

[EXEUNT COB AND PISO.]

ACT III. SCENE II.

PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and
exceedingly well carried.

LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well,
did it not?

PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not
know him?

LOR. JU. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd
patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him.
'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of
one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous,
worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to
sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his
half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have
translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine
easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a
shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these
lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing
every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing
with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite
a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn
he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the
rout.

PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been
such a gallant?

LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled
begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases
from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think
the world cannot produce his rival.

PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?

MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near
kinsmen, a broker.

PROS. That cannot be, if the proverb hold, a crafty
knave needs no broker.

MUS. True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo, no crafty
knave.

PROS. Well put off, well put off.

LOR. JU. Tut, he has more of these shifts.

MUS. And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir.

[ENTER PIS.]

PIS. Francisco, Martino, ne'er a one to be found now:
what a spite's this?

PROS. How now, Piso? is my brother within?

PIS. No, sir,