Chapter 19

A STREET.

ENTER VOLPONE.

VOLP: To make a snare for mine own neck! and run My head into it, wilfully! with laughter! When I had newly 'scaped, was free, and clear, Out of mere wantonness! O, the dull devil Was in this brain of mine, when I devised it, And Mosca gave it second; he must now Help to sear up this vein, or we bleed dead.-- [ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.] How now! who let you loose? whither go you now? What, to buy gingerbread? or to drown kitlings?

NAN: Sir, master Mosca call'd us out of doors, And bid us all go play, and took the keys.

AND: Yes.

VOLP: Did master Mosca take the keys? why so! I'm farther in. These are my fine conceits! I must be merry, with a mischief to me! What a vile wretch was I, that could not bear My fortune soberly? I must have my crotchets, And my conundrums! Well, go you, and seek him: His meaning may be truer than my fear. Bid him, he straight come to me to the court; Thither will I, and, if't be possible, Unscrew my advocate, upon new hopes: When I provoked him, then I lost myself.

[EXEUNT.]