SIR RADERIC and PRODIGO at one corner of the stage; RECORDER and AMORETTO at the other: two PAGES scouring of tobacco-pipes.
SIR RADERIC. Master Prodigo, Master Recorder hath told you law—your land is forfeited; and for me not to take the forfeiture were to break the Queen's law. For mark you, it's law to take the forfeiture; therefore not to take[110] it is to break the Queen's law; and to break the Queen's law is not to be a good subject, and I mean to be a good subject. Besides, I am a justice of the peace; and, being justice of the peace, I must do justice—that is, law—that is, to take the forfeiture, especially having taken notice of it. Marry, Master Prodigo, here are a few shillings over and besides the bargain.
PRODIGO. Pox on your shillings! 'Sblood, a while ago, before he had me in the lurch, who but my cousin Prodigo? You are welcome, my cousin Prodigo. Take my cousin Prodigo's horse. A cup of wine for my cousin Prodigo. Good faith, you shall sit here, good cousin Prodigo. A clean trencher for my cousin Prodigo. Have a special care of my cousin Prodigo's lodging. Now, Master Prodigo with a pox, and a few shillings for a vantage. A plague on your shillings! Pox on your shillings! If it were not for the sergeant, which dogs me at my heels, a plague on your shillings! pox on your shillings! pox on yourself and your shillings! pox on your worship! If I catch thee at Ostend—I dare not stay for the sergeant. [Exit.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE.
Good faith, Master Prodigo is an excellent fellow. He takes the Gulan
Ebullitio so excellently.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. He is a good liberal gentleman: he hath bestowed an ounce of tobacco upon us; and, as long as it lasts, come cut and long tail, we'll spend it as liberally for his sake.
SIR RADERIC'S PAGE. Come, fill the pipe quickly, while my master is in his melancholy humour; it's just the melancholy of a collier's horse.
AMORETTO'S PAGE. If you cough, Jack, after your tobacco, for a punishment you shall kiss the pantofle.
SIR RADERIC. It's a foul oversight, that a man of worship cannot keep a wench in his house, but there must be muttering and surmising. It was the wisest saying that my father ever uttered, that a wife was the name of necessity, not of pleasure; for what do men marry for, but to stock their ground, and to have one to look to the linen, sit at the upper end of the table, and carve up a capon; one that can wear a hood like a hawk, and cover her foul face with a fan. But there's no pleasure always to be tied to a piece of mutton; sometimes a mess of stewed broth will do well, and an unlaced rabbit is best of all. Well, for mine own part, I have no great cause to complain, for I am well-provided of three bouncing wenches, that are mine own fee-simple; one of them I am presently to visit, if I can rid myself cleanly of this company. Let me see how the day goes [he pulls his watch out]. Precious coals! the time is at hand; I must meditate on an excuse to be gone.
RECORDER. The which, I say, is grounded on the statute I spake of before, enacted in the reign of Henry VI.
AMORETTO. It is a plain case, whereon I mooted[111] in our Temple, and that was this: put case, there be three brethren, John a Nokes, John a Nash, and John a Stile. John a Nokes the elder, John a Nash the younger, and John a Stile the youngest of all. John a Nash the younger dieth without issue of his body lawfully begotten. Whether shall his lands ascend to John a Nokes the elder, or descend to John a Stile the youngest of all? The answer is, the lands do collaterally descend, not ascend.