ILF.  As I did before, with my hands; how should I feel myself else? but I’ll tell you news, gallants.

WEN.  What’s that? dost mean now to serve God?

ILF.  Faith, partly; for I intend shortly to go to church, and from thence do faithful service to one woman.

    Enter BUTLER.

BUT.  Good!  I have met my flesh-hooks together. [Aside.]

BAR.  What, dost mean to be married?

ILF.  Ay, mongrel, married.

BUT.  That’s a bait for me. [Aside.]

ILF.  I will now be honestly married.

WEN.  It’s impossible, for thou hast been a whoremaster this seven year.

ILF.  ’Tis no matter; I will now marry, and to some honest woman too; and so from hence her virtues shall be a countenance to my vices.

BAR.  What shall she be, prythee?

ILF.  No lady, no widow, nor no waiting gentlewoman, for under protection
Ladies may lard their husbands’ heads,
Widows will woodcocks make,
And chambermaids of servingmen
Learn that they’ll never forsake.

WEN.  Who wilt thou wed then, prythee?

ILF.  To any maid, so she be fair: 
To any maid, so she be rich: 
To any maid, so she be young: 
And to any maid—­

BAR.  So she be honest.

ILF.  Faith, it’s no great matter for her honesty, for in these days that’s a dowry out of request.

BUT.  From these crabs will I gather sweetness:  wherein I’ll imitate the bee, that sucks her honey, not from the sweetest flowers, but [from] thyme, the bitterest:  so these having been the means to beggar my master, shall be the helps to relieve his brothers and sister.
          
                                                   [Aside.]

ILF.  To whom shall I now be a suitor?

BUT.  Fair fall ye, gallants.

ILF.  Nay, and she be fair, she shall fall sure enough.  Butler, how is’t, good butler?

BUT.  Will you be made gallants?

WEN.  Ay, but not willingly cuckolds, though we are now talking about wives.

BUT.  Let your wives agree of that after:  will you first be richly married?

ALL.  How, butler? richly married?

BUT.  Rich in beauty, rich in purse, rich in virtue, rich in all things.  But mum, I’ll say nothing, I know of two or three rich heirs.  But cargo![403] my fiddlestick cannot play without rosin:  avaunt.

WEN.  Butler.

ILF.  Dost not know me, butler?

BUT.  For kex,[404] dried kex, that in summer has been so liberal to fodder other men’s cattle, and scarce have enough to keep your own in winter.  Mine are precious cabinets, and must have precious jewels put into them, and I know you to be merchants of stock-fish, dry-meat,[405] and not men for my market:  then vanish.

ILF.  Come, ye old madcap, you:  what need all this? cannot a man have been a little whoremaster in his youth, but you must upbraid him with it, and tell him of his defects which, when he is married, his wife shall find in him?  Why, my father’s dead, man, now; who by his death has left me the better part of a thousand a year.