To. Excellently spoken! This modest answer of thine blushes, as if it said, I will wear scarlet shortly. Worshipful son! I cannot contain myself, I must tell thee; I hope to see thee one o’ the monuments of our city, and reckoned among her worthies to be remembered
the same day with the Lady Ramsey[86] and grave Gresham, when the famous fable of Whittington and his puss shall be forgotten, and thou and thy acts become the posies for hospitals; when thy name shall be written upon conduits, and thy deeds, played i’ thy lifetime, by the best companies of actors,[87] and be called their get-penny.[88] This I divine. This I prophesy. 79
Go. Sir, engage not your expectation farther than my abilities will answer; I, that know mine own strengths, fear ’hem; and there is so seldom a loss in promising the least, that commonly it brings with it a welcome deceit. I have other news for you, sir.
To. None more welcome, I am sure?
Go. They have their degree of welcome, I dare affirm. The colonel and all his company, this morning putting forth drunk from Billingsgate, had like to have been cast away o’ this side Greenwich; and (as I have intelligence by a false brother) are come dropping to town like so many masterless men, i’ their doublets and hose, without hat, or cloak, or any other—— 92
To. A miracle! the justice of Heaven! Where are they? let’s go presently and lay[89] for ’hem.
Go. I have done that already, sir, both by constables and other officers, who shall take ’hem at their old Anchor, and with less tumult or suspicion than if yourself were seen in’t—and under colour of a great press that is now abroad, and they shall here be brought afore me. 100
To. Prudent and politic son! Disgrace ’hem all that ever thou canst; their ship I have already arrested. How to my wish it falls out, that thou hast the place of a justicer upon ’hem! I am partly glad of the injury done to me, that thou may’st punish it. Be severe i’ thy place, like a new officer o’ the first quarter, unreflected. You hear how our lady is come back with her train, from the invisible castle?
Go. No; where is she? 109
To. Within; but I ha’ not seen her yet, nor her mother, who now begins to wish her daughter undubbed, they say, and that she had walked a foot-pace with her sister. Here they come; stand back.