ACT IV. SCENE I.

QUOMODO’s _Shop_.

_Enter_ QUOMODO, SHORTYARD _and_ FALSELIGHT _disguised as before,[1093] after whom_ EASY _follows hard_.

SHO. Made fools of us! not to be found! QUO. What, what? EASY. Do not undo me quite, though, master Quomodo. QUO. You’re very welcome, master Easy: I ha’ nothing to say to you; I’ll not touch you; you may go when you please; I have good bail here, I thank their worships. EASY. What shall I say, or whom shall I beseech? SHO. Gentlemen! ’slid, they were born to undo us, I think: but, for my part, I’ll make an oath before master Quomodo here, ne’er to do gentlemen good while I live. FAL. I’ll not be long behind you. SHO. Away! if you had any grace in you, you would be ashamed to look us i’ th’ face, i-wis:[1094] I wonder with what brow you can come amongst us. I should seek my fortunes far enough, if I were you; and neither return to Essex, to be a shame to my predecessors, nor remain about London, to be a mock to my successors. QUO. Subtle Shortyard! [_Aside._ SHO. Here are his lands forfeited to us, master Quomodo; and to avoid the inconscionable trouble of law, all the assurance he made to us we willingly resign to you. QUO. What shall I do with rubbish? give me money: ’tis for your worships to have land, that keep great houses; I should be hoisted. SHO. But, master Quomodo, if you would but conceive it aright, the land would fall fitter to you than to us. EASY. Curtsying about my land! [_Aside._ SHO. You have a towardly son and heir, as we hear. QUO. I must needs say, he is a Templar indeed. SHO. We have neither posterity in town, nor hope for any abroad: we have wives, but the marks have been out of their mouths these twenty years; and, as it appears, they did little good when they were in. We could not stand about it, sir; to get riches and children too, ’tis more than one man can do: and I am of those citizens’ minds that say, let our wives make shift for children and[1095] they will, they get none of us; and I cannot think, but he that has both much wealth and many children has had more helps coming in than himself. QUO. I am not a bow wide[1096] of your mind, sir: and for the thrifty and covetous hopes I have in my son and heir, Sim Quomodo, that he will never trust his land in wax and parchment, as many gentlemen have done before him—— EASY. A by-blow for me. [_Aside._

_Enter_ THOMASINE.

QUO. I will honestly discharge you, and receive it in due form and order of law, to strengthen it for ever to my son and heir, that he may undoubtedly enter upon’t without the let[1097] or molestation of any man, at his or our pleasure whensoever. SHO. ’Tis so assured unto you. QUO. Why, then, master Easy, you’re a free man, sir; you may deal in what you please, and go whither you will.—Why, Thomasine, master Easy is come from Essex; bid him welcome in a cup of small beer. THO. Not only vild,[1098] but in it tyrannous. [_Aside._ QUO. If it please you, sir, you know the house; you may visit us often, and dine with us once a-quarter. EASY. Confusion light on you, your wealth, and heir! Worm gnaw your conscience as the moth your ware! I am not the first heir that robb’d or begg’d. [_Exit._ QUO. Excellent, excellent, sweet spirits![1099] [_Exit_ THOMASINE. SHO. Landed master Quomodo! QUO. Delicate Shortyard, commodious Falselight, Hug and away, shift, shift: ’Tis slight,[1100] not strength, that gives the greatest lift. [_Exeunt_ SHORTYARD _and_ FALSELIGHT. Now my desires are full,—for this time. Men may have cormorant wishes, but, alas, A little thing, three hundred pound a-year, Suffices nature, keeps life and soul together! I’ll have ’emlopt[1101] immediately; I long To warm myself by th’ wood. A fine journey in the Whitsun holydays, i’faith, to ride down with a number of citizens and their wives, some upon pillions, some upon side-saddles, I and little Thomasine i’ th’ middle, our son and heir, Sim Quomodo, in a peach-colour taffeta jacket, some horse- length, or a long yard before us;—there will be a fine show on’s, I can tell you;—where we citizens will laugh and lie down,[1102] get all our wives with child against a bank, and get up again. Stay; hah! hast thou that wit, i’faith? ’twill be admirable: to see how the very thought of green fields puts a man into sweet inventions! I will presently possess Sim Quomodo of all the land; I have a toy[1103] and I’ll do’t: and because I see before mine eyes that most of our heirs prove notorious rioters after our deaths, and that cozenage in the father wheels about to folly in the son, our posterity commonly foiled at the same weapon at which we played rarely; and being the world’s beaten[1104] word,—what’s got over the devil’s back (that’s by knavery) must be spent under his belly (that’s by lechery): being awake in these knowings, why should not I oppose ’emnow, and break Destiny of her custom, preventing that by policy, which without it must needs be destiny? And I have took the course: I will forthwith sicken, call for my keys, make my will, and dispose of all; give my son this blessing, that he trust no man, keep his hand from a quean and a scrivener, live in his father’s faith, and do good to nobody: then will I begin to rave like a fellow of a wide conscience, and, for all the world, counterfeit to the life that which I know I shall do when I die; take on[1105] for my gold, my lands, and my writings, grow worse and worse, call upon the devil, and so make an end. By this time I have indented with a couple of searchers,[1106] who, to uphold my device, shall fray them out a’ th’ chamber with report of sickness; and so, la, I start up, and recover again! for in this business I will trust, no, not my spirits,[1107] Falselight and Shortyard, but, in disguise, note the condition of all; how pitiful my wife takes my death, which will appear by November in her eye, and the fall of the leaf in her body, but especially by the cost she bestows upon my funeral, there shall I try her love and regard; my daughter’s marrying to my will and liking; and my son’s affection after my disposing: for, to conclude, I am as jealous of this land as of my wife, to know what would become of it after my decease. [_Exit._