SCENE II.--_An outer Apartment in_ BELLAFRONT’S _House_.

_Enter_ Mistress FINGERLOCK _and_ ROGER.

_Mis. F._ O Roger, Roger, where’s your mistress, where’s your mistress? there’s the finest, neatest gentleman at my house, but newly come over: Oh, where is she, where is she, where is she?

_Rog._ My mistress is abroad, but not amongst ’em: my mistress is not the whore now that you take her for.

_Mis. F._ How? is she not a whore? do you go about to take away her good name, Roger? you are a fine pander indeed.

_Rog._ I tell you, Madonna Fingerlock, I am not sad for nothing, I ha’ not eaten one good meal this three and thirty days: I had wont to get sixteen pence by fetching a pottle of hippocras; but now those days are past. We had as good doings, Madonna Fingerlock, she within doors, and I without, as any poor young couple in Milan.

_Mis. F._ God’s my life, and is she changed now?

_Rog._ I ha’ lost by her squeamishness, more than would have builded twelve bawdy-houses.

_Mis. F._ And had she no time to turn honest but now? what a vile woman is this! twenty pound a-night, I’ll be sworn, Roger, in good gold and no silver: why here was a time! if she should ha’ picked out a time, it could not be better: gold enough stirring; choice of men, choice of hair, choice of beards, choice of legs, and choice of every, every, everything: it cannot sink into my head, that she should be such an ass. Roger, I never believe it.

_Rog._ Here she comes now.

_Enter_ BELLAFRONT.

_Mis. F._ O sweet madonna, on with your loose gown, your felt[189] and your feather, there’s the sweetest, properest,[190] gallantest gentleman at my house; he smells all of musk and ambergris his pocket full of crowns, flame-coloured doublet, red satin hose, carnation silk stockings, and a leg, and a body,-- oh!

[189] Hat.

[190] Handsomest.

_Bell._ Hence thou, our sex’s monster, poisonous bawd, Lust’s factor, and damnation’s orator. Gossip of hell! were all the harlots’ sins Which the whole world contains, numbered together, Thine far exceeds them all: of all the creatures That ever were created, thou art basest. What serpent would beguile thee of thy office? It is detestable: for thou livest Upon the dregs of harlots, guard’st the door, Whilst couples go to dancing: O coarse devil! Thou art the bastard’s curse, thou brand’st his birth; The lecher’s French disease: for thou dry-suck’st him; The harlot’s poison, and thine own confusion.

_Mis. F._ Marry come up, with a pox, have you nobody to rail against, but your bawd now?

_Bell._ And you, knave pander, kinsman to a bawd.

_Rog._ You and I, madonna, are cousins.

_Bell._ Of the same blood and making, near allied; Thou, that art slave to sixpence, base metalled villain!

_Rog._ Sixpence? nay, that’s not so: I never took under two shillings four-pence; I hope I know my fee.

_Bell._ I know not against which most to inveigh: For both of you are damned so equally. Thou never spar’st for oaths, swear’st any thing, As if thy soul were made of shoe-leather: “God damn me, gentleman, if she be within!” When in the next room she’s found dallying.

_Rog._ If it be my vocation to swear, every man in his vocation: I hope my betters swear and damn themselves, and why should not I?

_Bell._ Roger, you cheat kind gentlemen.

_Rog._ The more gulls they.

_Bell._ Slave, I cashier thee.

_Mis. F._ An you do cashier him, he shall be entertained.

_Rog._ Shall I? then blurt[191] a’ your service.

[191] See note _ante_, p. 114.

_Bell._ As hell would have it, entertained by you! I dare the devil himself to match those two. [_Exit._

_Mis. F._ Marry gup, are you grown so holy, so pure, so honest with a pox?

_Rog._ Scurvy honest punk! but stay, madonna, how must our agreement be now? for, you know, I am to have all the comings-in at the hall-door, and you at the chamber-door.

_Mis. F._ True Roger except my vails.

_Rog._ Vails? what vails?

_Mis. F._ Why as thus; if a couple come in a coach, and light to lie down a little, then, Roger, that’s my fee, and you may walk abroad; for the coachman himself is their pander.

_Rog._ Is ’a so? in truth I have almost forgot, for want of exercise. But how if I fetch this citizen’s wife to that gull, and that madonna to that gallant, how then?

_Mis. F._ Why then, Roger, you are to have sixpence a lane; so many lanes, so many sixpences.

_Rog._ Is’t so? then I see we two shall agree, and live together.

_Mis. F._ Ay, Roger, so long as there be any taverns and bawdy-houses in Milan. [_Exeunt._