[CAPTAIN UNDERWIT, A COMEDY.]

Act the First.

    Enter Captaine Underwit and his man Thomas.

Un.  Come, my man Thomas, and my fathers old man Thomas; reioyce, I say, and triumph:  thy Master is honourable.

Tho.  Then wee are all made.

Un.  No, tis only I am made.

Tho.  What, and please your worship?

Un.  I am made a Captaine of the traind band,[214] Thomas, and this is my Commission, this very paper hath made me a Captaine.

Tho.  Are you a paper Captaine, Sir?  I thought more had gone to the makeing up of a Captaine.

Un.  They are fooles that thinke so, provided he have the favour of the Livetenant of the County.

Tho.  Which it seemes you have.

Un.  The honour of it is more then the thing, Thomas, since I did not bribe the Secretarys steward or what servant else so ever hath the government of his Lordship therein.

Tho.  This is very strange.

Un.  Not so much as transitorie wicker bottles to his Deputy Livetenant, no fewell for his winter, no carriages for his summer, no steple sugarloaves to sweeten his neighbours at Christmas, no robbing my brave tennants of their fatt Capons or Chickens to present his worship withall, Thomas.

Tho.  I cry your worship mercy, you sold him land the last terme; I had forgott that.

Un.  I, that lay convenient for him.  I us’d him like a gentleman and tooke litle or nothing; ’twere pitty two or three hundred acres of dirt should make friends fall out:  we should have gone to fenceing schools.

Tho.  How, sir?

Un.  I meane to Westminster hall, and let one another blood in Lawe.

Tho.  And so the Land has parted you?

Un.  Thou saist right, Thomas, it lies betweene both our houses indeed.  But now I am thus dignified (I thinke that’s a good word) or intituled is better, but tis all one; since I am made a Captaine—­

Tho.  By your owne desert and vertue.

Un.  Thou art deceavd; it is by vertue of the Commission,—­the Commission is enough to make any man an officer without desert; Thomas, I must thinke how to provide mee of warlike accoutrements to accomodate, which comes of Accomodo[215]:  Shakespeare.  The first, and the first—­

Tho.  No, Sir, it comes of so much money disburs’d.

Un.  In troth, and it does, Thomas; but take out your table bookes and remember to bring after me into the Country, for I will goe downe with my father in law Sir Richard this morning in the Coach,—­let me see—­first and formost:  a Buff Coate and a paire of breeches.

Tho.  First and formost:  Item, a Buff Coate fox and a paire of breeches of the same Cloth.