SCENE IV.—Newgate.
Young Bookwit, Latine, Simon, Storm, with the crowd of Gaol-birds.
Storm. I apprehend, sir, by Mr. Turnkey, the gentleman there with a broken nose, that you're brought in for murder. I honour you, sir; I don't question but 'twas done like a gentleman.
Y. Book. I hope it will appear so.
Storm. I come, I fear, sir, to your acquaintance with some prejudice, because you see me thus in irons. But affliction is the portion of the virtuous and the gallant.
Y. Book. It does not depress, sir, but manifest the brave.
Storm. Right, sir, I find you're noble. You may, perhaps, have heard of me. My name is Storm. This person, my friend, who is called Faggot, and myself, being exposed by an ungrateful world to feel its cruelty and contempt of ragged virtue, made war upon it, and in open day infested their high road.
Y. Book. Your humble servant, gentlemen, I do conceive you. Your spirits could not stoop to barter on the change, to sneer in courts, to lie, to flatter, or to creep for bread. You, therefore, chose rather to prey like lions, then betray like crocodiles, or fawn like dogs. You took upon you to interrupt the commerce of a cheating world, to unload the usurer of his anxious pelf, and save the thoughtless landed boy he travelled to undo, with a thousand such good actions; by which means you two are infamous, for what two millions of you had been glorious.
Storm. Right, sir; I see you're knowing, sir, and learned in man. This gentleman, Mr. Charcoal, the chemist, was our secret correspondent, and as we never robbed a poor man, so he never cheated a fool, but still imposed on your most sprightly wits and genius—fellows of fire and metal, whose quick fancies and eager wishes formed reasons for their undoing. He is a follower of the great Raimundus Lullius; the public think to frighten him into their own purposes. But he'll leave the ungrateful world without the secret.
Char. You know, sir, he that first asserted the Antipodes died for that knowledge; and I, sir, having found out the melioration of metals, the ignorant will needs call it coining; and I am to be hanged for it, would you think it?