that will set her hard, I warrant thee; for, by the mass, I was once in good comfort to have cosened a wench, and wott’st thou what I told her?  I told her I had a hundred pound land a year in a place, where I have not the breadth of my little finger.  I promised her to enfeoff her in forty pounds a year of it, and I think of my conscience, if I had had but as good a face as thine, I should have made her have cursed the time that ever she see it.  And thus thou must do:  crack and lie, and face, and thou shalt triumph mightily.

PETER PLOD-ALL. 
I need not do so, for I may say, and say true, I have lands and living
enough for a country fellow.

ROBIN GOODFELLOW. 
By’r Lady, so had not I. I was fain to overreach, as many times I do;
but now experience hath taught me so much craft that I excel in cunning.

PETER PLOD-ALL. 
Well, sir, then I’ll be bold to trust to your cunning, and so I’ll bid
you farewell, and go forward.  I’ll to her, that’s flat.

ROBIN GOODFELLOW. 
Do so, and let me hear how you speed.

PETER PLOD-ALL. 
That I will, sir. [Exit PETER.

ROBIN GOODFELLOW.  Well, a good beginning makes a good end.  Here’s ten groats for doing nothing.  I con Master Churms thanks for this, for this was his device; and therefore I’ll go seek him out, and give him a quart of wine, and know of him how he deals with the scholar. [Exit.

    Enter CHURMS and SOPHOS.

CHURMS. Why, look ye, sir; by the Lord, I can but wonder at her father; he knows you to be a gentleman of good bringing up, and though your wealth be not answerable to his, yet, by heavens, I think you are worthy to do far better than Lelia—­yet I know she loves you dearly.

SOPHOS. 
The great Tartarian emperor, Tamar Cham,
Joy’d not so much in his imperial crown,
As Sophos joys in Lelia’s hoped-for love,
Whose looks would pierce an adamantine heart,
And makes the proud beholders stand at gaze,
To draw love’s picture from her glancing eye.

CHURMS.
And I will stretch my wits unto the highest strain,
To further Sophos in his wish’d desires.

SOPHOS. 
Thanks, gentle sir. 
But truce awhile; here comes her father.

    Enter GRIPE.

I must speak a word or two with him.

CHURMS.
Ay, he’ll give you your answer, I warrant ye. [Aside.

SOPHOS. 
God save you, sir.

GRIPE.  O Master Sophos, I have longed to speak with you a great while.  I hear you seek my daughter Lelia’s love.  I hope you will not seek to dishonest me, nor disgrace my daughter.

SOPHOS. 
No, sir; a man may ask a yea; a woman may say nay.  She is in choice to
take her choice, yet I must confess I love Lelia.

GRIPE.  Sir, I must be plain with you.  I like not of your love.  Lelia’s mine.  I’ll choose for Lelia, and therefore I would wish you not to frequent my house any more.  It’s better for you to ply your book, and seek for some preferment that way, than to seek for a wife before you know how to maintain her.