Limb. How now, bully Brainsick!  What, upon the Tan ta ra, by yourself?

Brain. Clangor, taratantara, murmur.

Limb. Commend me to honest lingua Franca.  Why, this is enough to stun a Christian, with your Hebrew, and your Greek, and such like Latin.

Brain. Out, ignorance!

Limb. Then ignorance, by your leave; for I must enter.
          
                                        [Attempts to pass.

Brain. Why in such haste? the fortune of Greece depends not on it.

Limb. But Pug’s fortune does:  that is dearer to me than Greece, and sweeter than ambergrease.

Brain. You will not find her here.  Come, you are jealous; you are haunted with a raging fiend, that robs you of your sweet repose.

Limb. Nay, an you are in your perbole’s again!  Look you, it is Pug is jealous of her jewels:  she has left the key of her cabinet behind, and has desired me to bring it back to her.

Brain. Poor fool! he little thinks she is here before him!—­Well, this pretence will never pass on me; for I dive deeper into your affairs; you are jealous.  But, rather than my soul should be concerned for a sex so insignificant—­Ha! the gods!  If I thought my proper wife were now within, and prostituting all her treasures to the lawless love of an adulterer, I would stand as intrepid, as firm, and as unmoved, as the statue of a Roman gladiator.

Limb. [In the same tone.] Of a Roman gladiator!—­Now are you as mad as a March hare; but I am in haste, to return to Pug:  yet, by your favour, I will first secure the cabinet.

Brain. No, you must not.

Limb. Must not?  What, may not a man come by you, to look upon his own goods and chattels, in his own chamber?

Brain. No; with this sabre I defy the destinies, and dam up the passage with my person; like a rugged rock, opposed against the roaring of the boisterous billows.  Your jealousy shall have no course through me, though potentates and princes—­

Limb. Pr’ythee, what have we to do with potentates and princes?  Will you leave your troping, and let me pass?

Brain. You have your utmost answer.

Limb. If this maggot bite a little deeper, we shall have you a citizen of Bethlem yet, ere dog-days.  Well, I say little; but I will tell Pug on it. [Exit.

Brain. She knows it already, by your favour—­ [Knocking. Sound a retreat, you lusty lovers, or the enemy will charge you in the flank, with a fresh reserve:  March off, march off upon the spur, ere he can reach you.

  Enter WOODALL.

Wood. How now, baron Tell-clock[12], is the passage clear?

Brain. Clear as a level, without hills or woods, and void of ambuscade.