JOHN. Come, we'll go visit her, but with this care,
That to no spendthrift we do marry her.
[Exeunt.
ILF. You may chance be deceived, old greybeards; here's he will spend some of it; thanks, thanks, honest butler! Now do I see the happiness of my future estate. I walk me as to-morrow, being the day after my marriage, with my fourteen men in livery-cloaks after me, and step to the wall in some chief streets of the city, though I have no occasion to use it, that the shopkeepers may take notice how many followers stand bare to me. And yet in this latter age, the keeping of men being not in request, I will turn my aforesaid fourteen into two pages and two coaches. I will get myself into grace at court, run headlong into debt, and then look scurvily upon the city. I will walk you into the presence in the afternoon, having put on a richer suit than I wore in the morning, and call, boy or sirrah. I will have the grace of some great lady, though I pay for't, and at the next triumphs run a-tilt, that when I run my course, though I break not my lance, she may whisper to herself, looking upon my jewel: well-run, my knight. I will now keep great horses, scorning to have a queen to keep me; indeed I will practise all the gallantry in use; for by a wife comes all my happiness.
Enter BUTLER.
BUT. Now, sir, you have heard her uncles, and how do you like them?
ILF. O butler, they have made good thy words, and I am ravished with them.
BUT. And having seen and kissed the gentlewoman, how do you like her?
ILF. O butler, beyond discourse, beyond any element; she's a paragon for a prince, rather than a fit implement for a gentleman.[414]
BUT. Well then, since you like her, and by my means, she shall like you, nothing rests now, but to have you married.
ILF. True, butler, but withal to have her portion!