FRAN. Look ye, sirrah, where your fellow lies:
He's[280] in a fine taking, is he not?
COOMES. Whoop, Hodge! where art thou, man, where art thou?
HOD. O, in a well.
COOMES. In a well, man! nay, then, thou art deep in understanding.
FRAN. Ay, once to-day you were almost so, sir.
COOMES. Who, I! go to, young master, I do not like this humour in ye, I tell ye true; give every man his due, and give him no more: say I was in such a case! go to, 'tis the greatest indignation that can be offered to a man; and, but a man's more godlier given, you were able to make him swear out his heart-blood. What, though that honest Hodge have cut his finger here, or, as some say, cut a feather: what, though he be mump, misled, blind, or as it were—'tis no consequent to me: you know I have drunk all the ale-houses in Abington dry, and laid the taps on the tables, when I had done: 'sblood, I'll challenge all the true rob-pots in Europe to leap up to the chin in a barrel of beer, and if I cannot drink it down to my foot, ere I leave, and then set the tap in the midst of the house, and then turn a good turn on the toe on it, let me be counted nobody, a pingler,[281]—nay, let me be[282] bound to drink nothing but small-beer seven years after—and I had as lief be hanged.
Enter NICHOLAS.
FRAN. Peace, sir, I must speak with one.—
Nicholas, I think, your name is.
NlCH. True as the skin between your brows.
FRAN. Well, how doth thy master?