Wood. [Aside.] Aldo, my own natural father, as I live!  I remember the lines of that hide-bound face:  Does he lodge here?  If he should know me, I am ruined.

Saint. Curse on his coming! he has disturbed us. [Aside.] Well, young gentleman, I shall take a time to instruct you better.

Wood. You shall find me an apt scholar.

Saint. I must go abroad upon some business; but remember your promise, to carry yourself soberly, and without scandal in my family; and so I leave you to this gentleman, who is a member of it.
          
                                              [Exit SAINT.

Aldo. [Aside.] Before George, a proper fellow, and a swinger he should be, by his make! the rogue would humble a whore, I warrant him.—­You are welcome, sir, amongst us; most heartily welcome, as I may say.

Wood. All’s well:  he knows me not.—­Sir, your civility is obliging to a stranger, and may befriend me, in the acquaintance of our fellow-lodgers.

Aldo. Hold you there, sir:  I must first understand you a little better; and yet, methinks, you should be true to love.

Wood. Drinking and wenching are but slips of youth:  I had those two good qualities from my father.

Aldo. Thou, boy!  Aha, boy! a true Trojan, I warrant thee! [Hugging him.] Well, I say no more; but you are lighted into such a family, such food for concupiscence, such bona roba’s!

Wood. One I know, indeed; a wife:  But bona roba’s, say you?

Aldo. I say, bona roba’s, in the plural number.

Wood. Why, what a Turk Mahomet shall I be!  No, I will not make myself drunk with the conceit of so much joy:  The fortune’s too great for mortal man; and I a poor unworthy sinner.

Aldo. Would I lie to my friend?  Am I a man?  Am I a christian?  There is that wife you mentioned, a delicate little wheedling devil, with such an appearance of simplicity; and with that, she does so undermine, so fool her conceited husband, that he despises her!

Wood. Just ripe for horns:  His destiny, like a Turk’s, is written in his forehead.[1]

Aldo. Peace, peace! thou art yet ordained for greater things.  There is another, too, a kept mistress, a brave strapping jade, a two-handed whore!

Wood. A kept mistress, too! my bowels yearn to her already:  she is certain prize.

Aldo. But this lady is so termagant an empress! and he is so submissive, so tame, so led a keeper, and as proud of his slavery as a Frenchman.  I am confident he dares not find her false, for fear of a quarrel with her; because he is sure to be at the charges of the war.  She knows he cannot live without her, and therefore seeks occasions of falling out, to make him purchase peace.  I believe she is now aiming at a settlement.