Quick.

Jaded to death, I warrant!—An easy chair, good Bardolph. Please you to depose yourself, Sir John.

Fal.

Soh! now have I taken up my sitting again, in my old quarters. A glass of sherris, Francis!

Dol.

And how do you find yourself, my sweet knight?

Fal.

Tolerably thirsty. (Drinks) I can drink; and that is all the bodily functions I am capable of. I am as stiff, ev'ry part about me, as a walking taylor or Don Diego on a sign-post.

Dol.

Nay, Sir John, if that be the case, it is not over with you yet. Give me a buss.

Fal.

Go, Dol, you are riggish—get you gone you water-wag-tail, you; I am not merrily dispos'd.

Dol.

But, will you give me a new kirtle at Bartlemew fair?

Fal.

I will, Dol.—Nay, I cannot bear you on my knee.

Dol.

Why, how came you so terribly maul'd, my leman?

Fal.

Did not I tell ye?

Quick.

No indeed, Sir John, your honour spoke of fatigue; but did not descend to particles. Your honour fell asleep, you know.

Fal.

Well then, I will tell ye now. Give me first a glass of sherris. (Drinks) You must know that, after the king (hang him for a sheep-stealing cur) gave me that rebuff I told you of; he stalk'd magisterially away, and left me to the mercy of the multitude: when, as I stood parleying with mine antient; mine arms a-kembo thus; a knot of elbowing earls bore me down before them, with the impetuosity of a torrent. Lo! there was I, jamm'd fast in the midst of a vile groupe of mechanics, as if we had grown together in a body corporate: and in this jeopardy was I carried along; sometimes bolster'd up on all sides, at the confluence of several turnings, like a Maypole; and at others, wire-drawn between two stone-walls, as if they meant to make chitterlings of me: now this fair round belly taking the form of a christmas pie, and by and by press'd as flat as a pancake. It is a miracle I did not burst in the midst of them. Had it not been for the sufficiency of my buf doublet, I should have certainly bursted.

Dol.

If you had, Sir John, you would have went off with a report like a bladder.

Fal.

A bladder, ye jade, a demi-culverin at least. I should have died an hero: my exit would have made some noise in the world.

Quick.

Heav'n forbid, Sir John, you should ever die a virulent death I say.

Dol.

I hope, indeed, sweet knight, you will never be press'd to death. That must be an odd end, and yet methinks I could bear much.

Fal.

I'll be sworn thou could'st, Dol: but thou art a woman, and made to bear.

Quick.

Yes, in good sooth, poor woman is made to bear ev'ry thing. She must suffer all a man's ill humours; let 'em lie never so heavy upon her: and, by my truly some men are nothing else. But, to be sure, Sir John,

you was us'd most unhumanly. Would no body take pity upon you?

Fal.

Pity! the most remorseless rascals! they made no more of me than if I had been a lump of dough, they were kneeding to make dumplings of: and to expostulate with the villains would have been preaching to the winds.

Dol.

Why did not you exert your courage, Sir John? draw upon them?

Fal.

Draw, sayst thou? I could not come at my rapier, to be master of a kingdom. And as for good words,—in return for the few I gave them, they let fly their jests so thick at me, and pepper'd me so plaguely with small wit, that I was dumbfounded.

Dol.

I thought you would never have been overmatch'd that way, Sir John.

Fal.

Yet so it was, Doll. They were holiday-wits, and came loaden with choke-pears: but, indeed, I was overpower'd by numbers. Two to one, Doll, you know— They pelted me from all quarters. Will you hear: I will give you a spice of their sarcasms; a sample of the gibing pellets they threw at me. As I was thus stemming the tide and crying out for the lord's sake, a dried eel's-skin of a fishmonger ask'd me how I could complain of the crowd. “Is a porpoise ill at ease, said he, amidst a glut of sprats and herrings?” I had not time to answer the smelt, before a barber-surgeon, the very model of the skeleton in his glass-case, offered to tap me for the dropsy; and to make us all elbow-room by letting out a puncheon of canary, at my girdle. Right, cries a third, at the word canary, “I'll be hang'd if any thing be in the doublet of that fat rogue but hog's-skins of Spanish wine;” and incontinently they roar'd out, on all sides, “Tap him, there,—tap him, master surgeon.”—'Sblood; I was forc'd to draw in my horns, and be silent; lest the villains, being thirsty, should force the shaver to operation. The knave, indeed, was five weavers off, and so could not well come at me; I might otherwise have been drunk up alive.

Dol.

Indeed, my witty knight, you was match'd.

Fal.

Wasn't I, Dol?

Dol.

And pray how cam'st thou off at last, Sir John?

Fal.

By mere providence: for, after the barbarous rascals had squeez'd the breath out of my body, they buffetted me because I could not roar out, God save the king. At length, I know not how, they threw me down in the cloisters, where, falling cross-wise and the way being narrow, I fairly block'd up the passage: upon which (for they could not straddle over me) they took another way (a plague go with them!) for fear of losing the show. And thus I was left to take in wind, and gather myself up at leisure.

Dol.

And did the mangy villains so play upon thy sack-but? so maul this poor round-belly? a parcel of sapless twigs! dry elms, fit only for fuel! I would I had the burning of them.

Fal.

Wouldst thou fire them, Dol? Ha! art thou touch-wood still, Dol?

Dol.

Nay, Sir John, not so.

Quick.

No, I'll be sworn, Sir John, to my carnal knowledge, if there be truth or faith in medicine. But Sir John, what would your honour please to have for supper?

Fal.

Another glass of sherris—fill me out, Bardolph. I cannot eat. I have lost my appetite by the way. Put an egg into a quart of mull'd sack, and give it me when I am a-bed. I will to sleep.

Dol.

Would you have your bed prepar'd, strait, Sir John?

Fal.

Ay, on the instant, good Dol. Hostess! go thou and see to the brewage of my sack.