Every Man in his Humour [30]
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, my master went forth e'en now, but Signior Giuliano is within. Cob, what, Cob! Is he gone too?
PROS. Whither went thy master? Piso, canst thou tell?
PIS. I know not, to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir. Cob.
[EXIT PIS.
LOR. JU. Doctor Clement, what's he? I have heard much speech of him.
PROS. Why, dost thou not know him? he is the Gonfaloniere of the state here, an excellent rare civilian, and a great scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe: I shewed him you the other day.
LOR. JU. Oh, I remember him now; Good faith, and he hath a very strange presence, methinks, it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests in Padua; they say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse.
PROS. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour.
PIS. Gaspar, Martino, Cob: 'Sheart, where should they be, trow?
[ENTER PISO.
BOB. Signior Thorello's man, I pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match.
PIS. A pox on your match, no time but now to vouchsafe? Francisco, Cob. [EXIT.
BOB. Body of me: here's the remainder of seven pound, since yesterday was sevennight. It's your right Trinidado: did you never take any, signior?
STEP. No, truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it so.
BOB. Signior, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies, (where this herb grows) where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound, your Balsamum, and your -- are all mere gulleries, and trash to it, especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too: I would say what I know of the virtue of it, for the exposing of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quack-salver. Only thus much; by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.
LOR. JU. Oh, this speech would have done rare in an apothecary's mouth.
PIS. Ay; close by Saint Anthony's: Doctor Clement's.
COB. Oh, oh.
BOB. Where's the match I gave thee?
PIS. 'Sblood, would his match, and he, and pipe, and all, were at Sancto Domingo. [EXIT.
COB. By God's deins, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco; it's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight, one of them (they say) will ne'er escape it, he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present death, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end as many as use it; it's little better than rat's-bane. [EXIT PISO.
ALL. Oh, good Signior; hold, hold.
BOB. You base cullion, you.
PIS. Sir, here's your match; come, thou must needs be talking too.
COB. Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you; well, it shall be a dear beating, an I life.