JOHN.  In anything, good honest Butler.

THOM.  If’t be to take a purse, I’ll be one.

BUT.  Perhaps thou speakest righter than thou art aware of.  Well, as chance is, I have received my wages; there is forty shillings for you, I’ll set you in a lodging, and till you hear from us, let that provide for you:  we’ll first to the surgeon’s.

To keep you honest, and to keep you brave,
For once an honest man will turn a knave.

[Exeunt.

Enter SCARBOROW, having a boy carrying a torch
with him:  ILFORD, WENTLOE, and BARTLEY.

SCAR.  Boy, bear the torch fair:  now am I armed to fight with a windmill, and to take the wall of an emperor; much drink, no money:  a heavy head and a light pair of heels.

WEN.  O, stand, man.

SCAR.  I were an excellent creature to make a punk of; I should down with the least touch of a knave’s finger.  Thou hast made a good night of this:  what hast won, Frank?

ILF.  A matter of nothing, some hundred pounds.

SCAR.  This is the hell of all gamesters.  I think, when they are at play, the board eats up the money; for if there be five hundred pound lost, there’s never but a hundred pounds won.  Boy, take the wall of any man:  and yet by light such deeds of darkness may not be.

[Put out the torch.

WEN.  What dost mean by that, Will?

SCAR.  To save charge, and walk like a fury with a firebrand in my hand:  every one goes by the light, and we’ll go by the smoke.

    Enter LORD FALCONBRIDGE.

SCAR.  Boy, keep the wall:  I will not budge[397] for any man, by these thumbs; and the paring of the nails shall stick in thy teeth.  Not for a world.

LORD.  Who’s this? young Scarborow?

SCAR.  The man that the mare rid on.

LORD.  Is this the reverence that you owe to me.

SCAR.  You should have brought me up better.

LORD.  That vice should thus transform man to a beast!

SCAR.  Go to, your name’s lord; I’ll talk with you, when you’re out of debt and have better clothes.

LORD.  I pity thee even with my very soul.

SCAR.  Pity i’ thy throat!  I can drink muscadine and eggs, and mulled sack; do you hear? you put a piece of turned stuff upon me, but I will—­

LORD.  What will you do, sir?

SCAR.  Piss in thy way, and that’s no slander.

LORD.  Your sober blood will teach you otherwise.

    Enter SIR WILLIAM SCARBOROW.

SIR WIL.  My honoured lord, you’re happily well-met.

LORD.  Ill met to see your nephew in this case,
More like a brute beast than a gentleman.

SIR WIL.  Fie, nephew! shame you not thus to transform yourself?

SCAR.  Can your nose smell a torch?

ILF.  Be not so wild; it is thine uncle Scarborow.

SCAR.  Why then ’tis the more likely ’tis my father’s brother.