Beau. Did not thy ancestors do it before thee, man? I tell thee, loyalty and starving are all one. The old cavaliers got such a trick of it in the king's exile, that their posterity could never thrive since.
Cour. 'Tis a fine equipage I am like to be reduced to; I shall be ere long as greasy as an Alsatian bully; this flopping hat, pinned up on one side, with a sandy, weather-beaten peruke, dirty linen, and, to complete the figure, a long scandalous iron sword jarring at my heels, like a—
Beau. Snarling, thou meanest, like its master.
Cour. My companions the worthy knights of the most noble order of the post; your peripatetic philosophers of the Temple-walks,[26] rogues in rags, and yet not honest; villains that undervalue damnation, will forswear themselves for a dinner, and hang their fathers for half-a-crown.
Beau. I am ashamed to hear a soldier talk of starving.
Cour. Why, what shall I do? I can't steal.
Beau. Though thou canst not steal, thou hast other vices enough for any industrious fellow to live comfortably upon.
Cour. What! wouldst thou have me turn rascal, and run cheating up and down the town for a livelihood? I would no more keep a blockhead company, and endure his nauseous nonsense, in hopes to get him, than I would be a drudge to an old woman with rheumatic eyes, hollow teeth, and stinking breath, for a pension: of all rogues, I would not be a fool-monger.
Beau. How well this niceness becomes thee! I'd fain see e'en thee turn parson in a pet, o' purpose to rail at all those vices which I know thou naturally art fond of. Why, surely an old lady's pension need not be so despicable in the eyes of a disbanded officer, as times go, friend.