ILF.  Have you so, and did not I call for Rhenish, you mongrel?

[Throws the wine in the DRAWER’S face.

SCAR.  Thou need’st no wine; I prythee, be more mild.

ILF.  Be mild in a tavern? ’tis treason to the red lattice,[383] enemy to their sign-post, and slave to humour:  prythee, let’s be mad.

    Sings this.

    Then fill our heads with wine
    Till every pate be drunk, then piss i’the street,
    Jostle all you meet,
    And swagger with a punk_—­

As thou wilt do now and then:  thank me, thy good master, that brought thee to it.

WEN.  Nay, he profits well; but the worst is, he will not swear yet.

SCAR.  Do not belie me:  if there be any good in me, that’s the best.  Oaths are necessary for nothing; they pass out of a man’s mouth, like smoke through a chimney, that files[384] all the way it goes.

WEN.  Why then I think tobacco to be a kind of swearing; for it furs our nose pockily.

SCAR.  But, come, let’s drink ourselves into a stomach afore supper.

ILF.  Agreed.  I’ll begin with a new health.  Fill up.

To them that make land fly, By wines, whores, and a die:  To them that only thrives By kissing others’ wives:  To them that pay for clothes With nothing but with oaths:  Care not from whom they get, So they may be in debt.  This health, my hearts! [Drinks_.  But who their tailors pay, Borrow, and keep their day, We’ll hold him like this glass, A brainless, empty ass, And not a mate for us_.  Drink round, my hearts!

WEN.  An excellent health.

    Enter DRAWER.

DRAW.  Master Ilford, there’s a couple of strangers beneath desires to speak with you.

ILF.  What beards have they? gentlemenlike-beards, or brokerlike-beards?

DRAW.  I am not so well acquainted with the art of face-mending, sir:  but they would speak with you.

ILF.  I’ll go down to them.

WEN.  Do; and we’ll stay here and drink tobacco.[385]

SCAR.  Thus like a fever that doth shake a man
From strength to weakness, I consume myself. 
I know this company, their custom vile,
Hated, abhorr’d of good men, yet like a child
By reason’s rule, instructed how to know
Evil from good, I to the worser go. 
Why do you suffer this, you upper powers,
That I should surfeit in the sin of taste,
Have sense to feel my mischiefs, yet make waste
Of heaven and earth? 
Myself will answer, what myself doth ask. 
Who once doth cherish sin, begets his shame,
For vice being foster’d once, comes impudence,
Which makes men count sin custom, not offence: 
When all like me their reputation blot,
Pursuing evil, while the good’s forgot.

    Enter ILFORD, led in by a couple of SERJEANTS,
    and GRIPE the usurer.

SER.  Nay, never strive, we can hold you.