Bil. Madam, I am going ambassador for Florence; ’twill be great charges to me.
Bian. No matter, my lord, you have the lease of two manors come out next Christmas; you may lay your tenants on the greater rack for it: and when you come home again, I’ll teach you how you shall get two hundred pounds a-year by your teeth. 40
Bil. How, madam?
Bian. Cut off so much from house-keeping: that which is saved by the teeth, you know, is got by the teeth.
Bil. ’Fore God, and so I may; I am in wondrous credit, lady.
Bian. See the use of flattery: I did ever counsel you to flatter greatness, and you have profited well: any man that will do so shall be sure to be like your Scotch barnacle,[458] now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great goose: this it is to rot and putrefy in the bosom of greatness. 52
Bil. Thou art ever my politician. O, how happy is that old lord that hath a politician to his young lady! I’ll have fifty gentlemen shall attend upon me: marry, the most of them shall be farmers’ sons, because they shall bear their own charges; and they shall go apparelled thus,—in sea-water-green suits, ash-colour cloaks, watchet
stockings, and popinjay-green feathers: will not the colours do excellent? 60
Bian. Out upon’t! they’ll look like citizens riding to their friends at Whitsuntide; their apparel just so many several parishes.
Bil. I’ll have it so; and Passarello, my fool, shall go along with me; marry, he shall be in velvet.