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By Root 20964 0

thou art altogether given over, and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God reward me for it! Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.

Enter Hostess.

How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who pick'd my pocket?

Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think

I

keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired, so

has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant.

The

tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair, and

I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman, go!

Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd so

in mine own house before!

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.

Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you,

Sir

John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to

beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'

wives; they have made bolters of them.

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.

You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and

by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.

Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them

coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a denier.

What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease

in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a

seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft,

that that ring was copper!

Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he were

here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.

Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets

them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.

How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.

Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.

Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband?

I love him well; he is an honest man.

Host. Good my lord, hear me.

Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.

Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my

pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick pockets.

Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty pound

apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.

Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so;

and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a

foul-mouth'd

man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.

Prince. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no

more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood,

Maid

Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go!

Host. Say, what thing? what thing?

Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.

Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it!

I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood aside,

thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting