HEU.  I will, sir.  But what say you to the gentleman that was with you yesterday?

PHA.  O, I think thou meanest him that made nineteen sonnets of his mistress’s busk-point.[219]

HEU.  The same, the same, sir.  You promised to help him out with the twentieth.

PHA.  By Jupiter’s cloven pate, ’tis true.  But we witty fellows are so forgetful; but stay, Heu, Heu,[220] carry him this.

    The Gordian knot, which Alexander great
      Did whilom, cut with his all-conquering sword,
    Was nothing like thy busk-point, pretty peat,[221]
      Nor could so fair an augury afford.

Then to conclude, let him pervert Catullas’s Zonam solvit diu ligatum thus, thus—­

    Which if I chance to cut, or else untie,
    Thy little world I’ll conquer presently.

’Tis pretty, pretty, tell him ’twas extemporal.

HEU.  Well, sir, but now for Master Inamorato’s love-letter.

PHA.  Some nettling stuff, i’faith; let him write thus:  Most heart-commanding-faced gentlewoman, even as the stone in India, called Basaliscus, hurts all that looks on it, and as the serpent in Arabia, called Smaragdus, delighteth the sight, so does thy celestial orb-assimilating eyes both please, and in pleasing wound my love-darted heart.

HEU.  But what trick shall I invent for the conclusion?

PHA.  Pish, anything, love will minister ink for the rest.  He that [hath] once begun well, hath half done; let him begin again, and there’s all.

HEU.  Master Gullio spoke for a new fashion; what for him?

PHA.  A fashion for his suit!  Let him button it down the sleeve with four elbows, and so make it the pure hieroglyphic of a fool.

HEU.  Nay, then let me request one thing of you.

PHA.  What’s that, boy?  By this fair hand, thou shalt have it.

HEU.  Mistress Superbia, a gentlewoman of my acquaintance, wished me to devise her a new set for her ruff and an odd tire.  I pray, sir, help me out with it.

PHA.  Ah, boy, in my conceit ’tis a hard matter to perform.  These women have well-nigh tired me with devising tires for them, and set me at a nonplus for new sets.  Their heads are so light, and their eyes so coy, that I know not how to please them.

HEU.  I pray, sir, she hath a bad face, and fain would have suitors.  Fantastical and odd apparel would perchance draw somebody to look on her.

PHA.  If her face be nought, in my opinion, the more view it the worse.  Bid her wear the multitude of her deformities under a mask, till my leisure will serve to devise some durable and unstained blush of painting.

HEU.  Very good, sir.