Mul. O, wife! O, wife! O, Jack! how does thy mother? Is there any fiddlers in the house?
Mistress Mul. Yes, Master Creak’s[52] noise? 120
Mul. Bid ’em play, laugh, make merry; cast up my accounts, for I’ll go hang myself presently. I will not curse, but a pox on Cocledemoy; he has poll’d and shaved me, he has trimm’d me!
[Exeunt.
[46] Old eds. “fiest.” Fist is a term of contempt (= fister, stinkard). “Vessifier, to breed a fyste, to make breake wind or let a fyste.”—Cotgrave.
[47] A grave stately dance.
[48] Noise in old writers usually means a company of musicians.
[50] A cordial.
[51] Mistress Mulligrub consoles her husband with the thought that in one week of term-time the fifteen pounds may be recovered by help of a little sharping (in the way of adulterating the liquors, frothing the cans, &c.).