Bian. A fool in velvet!
Bil. Ay, ’tis common for your fool to wear satin; I’ll have mine in velvet.
Bian. What will you wear, then, my lord? 69
Bil. Velvet too; marry, it shall be embroidered, because I’ll differ from the fool somewhat. I am horribly troubled with the gout: nothing grieves me, but that my doctor hath forbidden me wine, and you know your ambassador must drink. Didst thou ask thy doctor what was good for the gout?
Bian. Yes; he said, ease, wine, and women, were good for it.
Bil. Nay, thou hast such a wit! What was good to cure it, said he? 79
Bian. Why, the rack. All your empirics could never do the like cure upon the gout the rack did in England, or your Scotch boot.[459] The French harlequin[460] will instruct you.
Bil. Surely, I do wonder how thou, having for the most part of thy lifetime been a country body, shouldst have so good a wit.
Bian. Who, I? why, I have been a courtier thrice two months. 88
Bil. So have I this twenty year, and yet there was a gentleman-usher called me coxcomb t’other day, and to my face too: was’t not a backbiting rascal? I would I were better travelled, that I might have been better acquainted with the fashions of several countrymen: but my secretary, I think, he hath sufficiently instructed me.