Merc. What a wise man should, that has respect for his own person. I ran into our tent, and hid myself amongst the baggage.
Sos. [Aside.] Such another cutting answer; and I must provide myself of another name.—[To him.] And how did you pass your time in that same tent? You need not answer to every circumstance so exactly now; you must lie a little, that I may think you the more me.
Merc. That cunning shall not serve your turn, to circumvent me out of my name: I am for plain naked truth. There stood a hogshead of old wine, which my lord reserved for his own drinking——
Sos. [Aside.] O the devil! as sure as death, he must have hid himself in that hogshead, or he could never have known that!
Merc. And by that hogshead, upon the ground, there lay the kind inviter and provoker of good drinking——
Sos. Nay, now I have caught you; there was neither inviter, nor provoker, for I was all alone.
Merc. A lusty gammon of——
Sos. [Sighing.] Bacon!—that word has quite made an end of me.—Let me see—this must be I, in spite of me; but let me view him nearer.
[Walks about Mercury with his Dark Lanthorn.
Merc. What are you walking about me for, with your dark lanthorn?