Go. And Security give her a dower, which shall be all the restitution he shall make of that huge mass he hath so unlawfully gotten. 181
To. Excellently devised! a good motion![124] What says Master Security?
Sec. I say anything, sir, what you’ll ha’ me say. Would I were no cuckold!
Wi. Cuckold, husband? Why, I think this wearing of yellow[125] has infected you. 187
To. Why, Master Security, that should rather be a comfort to you than a corasive. If you be a cuckold, it’s an argument you have a beautiful woman to your wife; then you shall be much made of; you shall have store of friends, never want money; you shall be eased of much o’ your wedlock pain, others will take it for you. Besides, you being a usurer (and likely to go to hell), the devils will never torment you: they’ll take you for one o’ their own race. Again, if you be a cuckold, and know it not, you are an innocent; if you know it and endure it, a true martyr. 198
Sec. I am resolved, sir. Come hither, Winny.
To. Well, then, all are pleased, or shall be anon.
Master Wolf, you look hungry, methinks; have you no apparel to lend Francis to shift him?
Qu. No, sir, nor I desire none; but here make it my suit, that I may go home through the streets in these, as a spectacle, or rather an example to the children of Cheapside.
To. Thou hast thy wish. Now, London, look about,
And in this moral see thy glass run out:
Behold the careful father, thrifty son,
The solemn deeds which each of us have done; 210
The usurer punish’d, and from fall so steep
The prodigal child reclaim’d, and the lost sheep.