Re-enter Don Pedro.
[187] D. Pedro. Now, signior, where’s the count? did you see him?
Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady 190 Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a [191] warren: I told him, and I think I told him true, that your [192] grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, [194] as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being 195 worthy to be whipped.
D. Pedro. To be whipped! What’s his fault?
Bene. The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, [198] being overjoyed with finding a birds’ nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.
200 D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.
Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, 205 who, as I take it, have stolen his birds’ nest.
D. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.
Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.
210 D. Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.