2d Peas. Who’s the warp, then?
1st Peas. We, man, the friezes and fustians, that rub on till we get frayed through with overwork, and then all’s abroad, and the nakedness of Babylon is discovered, and catch who catch can.
Old Woman. Pity they only brought his bones home! He would have made a lovely corpse, surely. He was a proper man!
1st Lady. Oh the mincing step he had with him! and the delicate hand on a horse, fingering the reins as St. Cicely does the organ-keys!
2d Lady. And for hunting, another Siegfried.
Knight. If he was Siegfried the gay, she was Chriemhild the grim; and as likely to prove a firebrand as the girl in the ballad.
1st Lady. Gay, indeed! His smiles were like plumcake, the sweeter the deeper iced. I never saw him speak civil word to woman, but to her.
2d Lady. O ye Saints! There was honey spilt on the ground! If I had such a knight, I’d never freeze alone on the chamber-floor, like some that never knew when they were well off. I’d never elbow him off to crusades with my pruderies.
‘Pluck your apples while they’re ripe,
And pull your flowers in May, O!’
Eh! Mother?