Jen. I would they might both feed upon nothing but rotten apples, and be choked with pears!
Curds. Or a piece of clout be left in the next fresh cheese they eat, and strangle 'um; or a favourable spider drop into the cream, and drown himself, that he may poison them.
Enter Ditty and Budget.
Ditty. 'Slife, lose [not] this opportunity; there she is; on, I say, and I'll be your second. I warrant she had been dead before this time, but that she smelt your breath hard by, or else knew by sympathy that you were coming.
Bud. Did the letter work so strangely on her, are you sure? I would not willingly venture my lips for a kiss, or my eyes for a look.
Ditty. Why, I tell thee she was so nigh a dissolution when I left her, that I thought to have found her in a sand-box, or begged by some vintner to keep bottled wine in, before I could return.
Bud. Well, I'll try, though she squeeze me into verjuice, and stamp my bones into small coal, that they may be twice burnt. [Advances.] O my honeycomb, milksop Nancy, whiter than the powder of chalk, and (like it) able to scour off the dirt of sullied drabs, and paint them with a brightness as glustering as thy own.
Curds. Out, you sooty goblin, besmeared dolt! dost think I'll couple with a negro, to bring forth magpies, half white and half black? Take me for a bee, to knit at the sound of a brass kettle or frying-pan? Bundle of charcoal, furred crock, dost think I'll hang in thy pot-hook arm? Hence, or I'll beat thee worse than the Bridewell crew does hemp!
Ditty. Ay, ay, read him the same lesson you conned me!
Bud. Sweet Mistress Curds, be not so sour. Good Ditty, stop her mouth.