Pe. Thanks, my dear gossip. I must now impart
To your approved love, a loving secret;
As one on whom my life doth more rely
In friendly trust than any man alive.
Nor shall you be the chosen secretary 220
Of my affections for affection only:
For I protest (if God bless my return)
To make you partner in my actions’ gain
As deeply as if you had ventured with me
Half my expenses. Know then, honest gossip,
I have enjoy’d with such divine contentment
A gentlewoman’s bed whom you well know,
That I shall ne’er enjoy this tedious voyage,
Nor live the least part of the time it asketh,
Without her presence; so I thirst and hunger 230
To taste the dear feast of her company.
And if the hunger and the thirst you vow
As my sworn gossip, to my wishèd good
Be, as I know it is, unfeign’d and firm,
Do me an easy favour in your power.
Sec. Be sure, brave gossip, all that I can do,
To my best nerve, is wholly at your service:
Who is the woman, first, that is your friend?
Pe. The woman is your learned counsel’s wife,
The lawyer, Master Bramble; whom would you 240
Bring out this even in honest neighbourhood,
To take his leave with you, of me your gossip,
I, in the meantime, will send this my friend
Home to his house, to bring his wife disguised,
Before his face, into our company;
For love hath made her look for such a wile,
To free her from his tyrannous jealousy.
And I would take this course before another,
In stealing her away to make us sport,
And gull his circumspection the more grossly; 250
And I am sure that no man like yourself
Hath credit with him to entice his jealousy
To so long stay abroad as may give time
To her enlargement, in such safe disguise.
Sec. A pretty, pithy, and most pleasant project!
Who would not strain a point of neighbourhood
For such a point device? that as the ship[62]
Of famous Draco went about the world,
Will wind about the lawyer, compassing
The world himself; he hath it in his arms, 260
And that’s enough for him, without his wife.
A lawyer is ambitious, and his head
Cannot be praised nor raised too high,
With any fork of highest knavery.
I’ll go fetch her straight.
[Exit Security.
Pe. So, so. Now, Frank, go thou home to his house,
’Stead of his lawyer’s, and bring his wife hither,
Who, just like to the lawyer’s wife, is prison’d
With his[63] stern usurous jealousy, which could never
Be over-reach’d thus but with over-reaching. 270
Sec. And, Master Francis, watch you th’ instant time
To enter with his exit: ’twill be rare,
Two fine horn’d beasts!—a camel and a lawyer!