PLEASURE.
Diligence, bring him hither. Good lords and ladies, stay.
SIMPLICITY.
O Master Fraud, welcome to the butts:
Now I'll have my ten shillings in spite of your guts.
The French canker consume ye, you were an old Frenchman!
De gol' button, gol' ringa, bugla lace! you cosen'd me then.
My lords, I beseech ye, that at Tyburn he may totter,
For instead of gold the villain sold me copper.
PLEASURE.
Is this true, Master Skill?
FRAUD. It is true in a sort, my lord. I thought to be pleasant with him, being my old acquain'ce, and disguis'd myself like an old French artificer; and having a few copper knacks, I sold them to him, to make sport, for ten shillings, which money I am content to pay him again: so shall he have no loss, though we have made a little sport.
PLEASURE.
First, give him an angel before my face. Simplicity, art thou pleased?
SIMPLICITY. Truly I am pleas'd to take a good angel for ten shillings, speciously of such a debtor as Master Fraud; but now I am to be pleas'd otherwise, that is, to see him punished. I promise ye the people love him well, for they would leave work and make half-holiday to see him hanged.
PLEASURE. That his punishment may please thee the better, thou shalt punish him thyself: he shall be bound fast to yon post, and thou shalt be blindfold, and with thy torch shalt run, as it were, at tilt, charging thy light against his lips, and so (if thou canst) burn out his tongue, that it never speak more guile.
SIMPLICITY. O, singulariter nominativo, wise Lord Pleasure: genitivo, bind him to that post: dativo, give me my torch: accusativo, for I say he's a cosener: vocativo, O, give me room to run at him: ablativo, take and blind me. Pluraliter per omnes casus, Laugh all you to see me, in my choler adust, To burn and to broil that false Fraud to dust.
[Bind FRAUD, blind SIMPLICITY: turn him thrice about; set his face towards the contrary post, at which he runs, and all-to burns it. DISSIMULATION, standing behind FRAUD, unbinds him, and while all the rest behold SIMPLICITY, they two slip away; PLEASURE, missing FRAUD, saith—
PLEASURE.
Wisely perform'd! but soft, sirs, where is Fraud?
O notable[287] villain! gone, whiles we beheld
The other. Who loos'd him? Who let him slip?
Well, one day he will pay for all. Unblind Simplicity.