T. There curse me, and seek your papers.—(Aside.) I think I have him now. If this does not satisfy my 2480master, I’ll never try to please him again.
N. (within). Let me out at once. There are no papers here. What did you shut me in here for?
T. To follow your occupation—to lounge, lounge in the cupboard. Am I a thief?
N. Let me out, I beg of you, Tristram.
T. Not till you have made my poem, or told me a cure for the rheumatics. Ay, bawl and kick: I will finish my accounts. Kick away, one for each pile. Twenty-six it was: twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Why you overdo it: you kick by the ducat. With three and a half, (pocketing.) thirty-three ducats and a half. Silence! silence! ’Tis more kicks than half-pence, as they say. If you will be quiet, I will give you back your sonnet. (Takes it out and reads)—
Master of mine, remember for pitie.
Ha! who’s your master now?—I will recite the end part, which I have never read.
Once in a vesture of pale crimson came
That willowed Archdelight, whose eyes are dim
With gazing on a book of writhing flame: