Hodge. Nay, stay, Firk; thou shalt not go alone.
Marg. I pray, let them go; there be more maids than Mawkin, more men than Hodge, and more fools than Firk.
Firk. Fools? Nails! if I tarry now, I would my guts might be turned to shoe-thread.
Hodge. And if I stay, I pray God I may be turned to a Turk, and set in Finsbury[48] for boys to shoot at.—Come, Firk.
Eyre. Stay, my fine knaves, you arms of my trade, you pillars of my profession. What, shall a tittle-tattle’s words make you forsake Simon Eyre?—Avaunt, kitchen-stuff! Rip, you brown-bread Tannikin;[49] out of my sight! Move me not! Have not I ta’en you from selling tripes in Eastcheap, and set you in my shop, and made you hail-fellow with Simon Eyre, the shoemaker? And now do you deal thus with my journeymen? Look, you powder-beef-quean, on the face of Hodge, here’s a face for a lord.
Firk. And here’s a face for any lady in Christendom.
Eyre. Rip, you chitterling, avaunt! Boy, bid the tapster of the Boar’s Head fill me a dozen cans of beer for my journeymen.
Firk. A dozen cans? O, brave! Hodge, now I’ll stay.
Eyre. (In a low voice to the Boy). An the knave fills any more than two, he pays for them. (Exit Boy. Aloud.) A dozen cans of beer for my journeymen. (Re-enter Boy.) Here, you mad Mesopotamians, wash your livers with this liquor. Where be the odd ten? No more, Madge, no more.—Well said. Drink and to work!—What work dost thou, Hodge? what work?
Hodge. I am a making a pair of shoes for my lord mayor’s daughter, Mistress Rose.