T. But I’ll give you back your sonnet, if you will write me a poem about my hat, this hat. ’Tis but to versify my own imaginations. See! I am the hat: the hole in it is my discharge: the flame which burnt the hole is Flora,—that’s the Countess’maid. All is good. There’s the blackness of the hat, the fire of the lamp, the abysm of the hole: it lacks but the moon, which you might shift to see through the crown; and if you could weave in with that your sphinx and something about death, I think that I might tickle the Countess’ ear to reconsider of my discharge; for she loves poetry.
N. Curse thy impertinence, Tristram. Where’s thy master?
T. I will shew you where your master is, if you curse me or aught of mine, master Nick.
N. Darst thou speak to me thus?
T. Did you not call me a thief, and base-born clown?
N. Art thou not both?
T. Whate’er I be, Mr. Poet, I have now no master, nor any obligation to any gentleman to make believe for his convenience that thou art aught. Thou! Why thy brainpan hath nought in it but shoddy, I warrant. Thou combed ass! thou left-handed goose!—to curse 2470 me!
N. By heaven, I cannot away with thee.
T. No, that you can’t. (Aside.) I have it. I’ll shut him in the screeky cupboard.—Well, sir: I know what you come after. ’Tis the marriage papers, is it not? I was bid see to them. Look in that cupboard.
N. Ah! are they there? (Goes to cupboard and looks in. T. pushes him behind, and shuts door on him, locking it.)