Keeper. Yes, Master Foster, and I sorrow for your losses,
Yet doubt not but your son and brother——
O. Fos. O, speak not of them! do not kiss and kill me;
I have no son nor brother that esteems me,
And I for ever hate their memory.
Prythee, no more! I am come sick
Into a bad inn, and look for worse attendance:
I have taken a surfeit of misfortunes, and here
Must swallow pills, with poison to recure me:
I am sea-sick, sir, and heave my hands to heaven;
Ne'er to so low an ebb was Foster driven.
Keeper. There be some fees to pay, sir, at your coming in.
O. Fos. So, so!
If this old walnut-tree, after all this cudgelling,
Have but one cluster left, thou shalt have that too;
If not, take off these leaves that cover me,
Pull off these white locks! rend them from my head!
And let them in my woes be buried.
Keeper. 'Las, sir! this house is poor.
O. Fos. I think no less,
For rich men seldom meet with such distress:
Well, well! what book must I read over now?
What servile oar must I be tied to here,
Slave-like to tug within this Christian galley?
Keeper. Sir, being the youngest prisoner in the house,
You must beg at the iron grate above,
As others do, for your relief and theirs.
O. Fos. For a beggar to beg, sir, is no shame;
And for the iron grate, it bears an emblem
Of iron-hearted creditors, that force men lie
In loathsome prisons thus to starve and die.
Enter Robert.
Keeper. Who would you speak with, sir?
O, cry you mercy! 'tis his son:
I'll leave them. [Exit.