Ang. How now Sir, what's your name? And what's
the matter?
Elb. If it please your honour, I am the poore Dukes
Constable, and my name is Elbow; I doe leane vpon Iustice
Sir, and doe bring in here before your good honor,
two notorious Benefactors
Ang. Benefactors? Well: What Benefactors are they? Are they not Malefactors? Elb. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: But precise villaines they are, that I am sure of, and void of all prophanation in the world, that good Christians ought to haue
Esc. This comes off well: here's a wise Officer
Ang. Goe to: What quality are they of? Elbow is
your name?
Why do'st thou not speake Elbow?
Clo. He cannot Sir: he's out at Elbow
Ang. What are you Sir? Elb. He Sir: a Tapster Sir: parcell Baud: one that serues a bad woman: whose house Sir was (as they say) pluckt downe in the Suborbs: and now shee professes a hot-house; which, I thinke is a very ill house too
Esc. How know you that?
Elb. My wife Sir? whom I detest before heauen, and
your honour
Esc. How? thy wife?
Elb. I Sir: whom I thanke heauen is an honest woman
Esc. Do'st thou detest her therefore?
Elb. I say sir, I will detest my selfe also, as well as she,
that this house, if it be not a Bauds house, it is pitty of her
life, for it is a naughty house
Esc. How do'st thou know that, Constable?
Elb. Marry sir, by my wife, who, if she had bin a woman
Cardinally giuen, might haue bin accus'd in fornication,
adultery, and all vncleanlinesse there
Esc. By the womans meanes?
Elb. I sir, by Mistris Ouerdons meanes: but as she spit
in his face, so she defide him