[Enter AMORETTO, reading Ovid.]

Not a word more.  Sir, an’t please you, your hobby will meet you at the lane’s end.

AMORETTO.  What, Jack? i’faith, I cannot but vent unto thee a most witty jest of mine.

PAGE.  I hope my master will not break wind. [Aside.] Will’t please you, sir, to bless mine ears with the discourse of it?

AMORETTO.  Good faith, the boy begins to have an elegant smack of my style.  Why, then, thus it was, Jack, a scurvy mere Cambridge scholar, I know not how to define him—­

PAGE.  Nay, master, let me define a mere scholar.  I heard a courtier once define a mere scholar to be animal scabiosum, that is, a living creature that is troubled with the itch; or, a mere scholar is a creature that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box, put on a pair of lined slippers, sit rheuming[91] till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell rings:  one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a licence to spit.  Or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot make a good leg; one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly; one that cannot ride a horse without spur-galling; one that cannot salute a woman, and look on her directly; one that cannot—­

AMORETTO.  Enough, Jack; I can stay no longer; I am so great in childbirth with this jest.  Sirrah, this predicable, this saucy groom, because, when I was in Cambridge, and lay in a trundlebed under my tutor, I was content, in discreet humility, to give him some place at the table; and because I invited the hungry slave sometimes to my chamber, to the canvassing of a turkey-pie or a piece of venison which my lady grandmother sent me, he thought himself therefore eternally possessed of my love, and came hither to take acquaintance of me; and thought his old familiarity did continue, and would bear him out in a matter of weight.  I could not tell how to rid myself better of the troublesome burr than by getting him into the discourse of hunting; and then tormenting him a while with our words of art, the poor scorpion became speechless, and suddenly vanished![92] These clerks are simple fellows, simple fellows.
                                                   [He reads Ovid.]

PAGE.  Simple, indeed, they are; for they want your courtly composition of a fool and of a knave. [Aside.] Good faith, sir, a most absolute jest; but, methinks, it might have been followed a little further.

AMORETTO. 
As how, my little knave?

PAGE.  Why thus, sir; had you invited him to dinner at your table, and have put the carving of a capon upon him, you should have seen him handle the knife so foolishly, then run through a jury of faces, then wagging his head and showing his teeth in familiarity, venture upon it with the same method that he was wont to untruss an apple-pie, or tyrannise an egg and butter:  then would I have applied him all dinner-time with clean trenchers, clean trenchers; and still when he had a good bit of meat, I would have taken it from him by giving him a clean trencher, and so have served him in kindness.