Fal. As I am a gentleman: come, no more words of it. Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

Fal. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German Hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw thy action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i' faith, I am loth to pawn my plate, so God save me, la.

Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still. Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together? Fal. Will I live? [To Bardolph] Go, with her, with

her; hook on, hook on.

Host. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? Fal. No more words; let's have her.

[Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, Officers, and Boy.

Ch. Just. I have heard better news.

Fal. What's the news, my lord?

Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night?

Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord.

Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord?

Ch. Just. Come all his forces back?

Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,

Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

Fal. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord? Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently:

Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

Fal. My lord!

Ch. Just. What's the matter?

Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir John.

Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

Fal. Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.

fool.

Ch. Just. Now, the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same.

Another street.

Enter Prince HENRY and POINTZ.

P. Hen. Before God, I am exceeding weary.

Poin. Is 't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

P. Hen. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

Poin. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.

P. Hen. Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast, viz. these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and one other for use! but that the tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou

keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low-countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland: and God knows whether those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

Poin. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?

P. Hen. Shall I tell thee one thing, Pointz?

Poin. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing. P. Hen. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

Poin. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

-

P. Hen. Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

Poin. Very hardly upon such a subject.

P. Hen. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

Poin. The reason ?

P. Hen. What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep? Poin. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite

P. Hen. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?

Poin. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff.

Poin. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: 'a had him from me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE.

Bard. God save your grace!

P. Hen. And yours, most noble Bardolph!

Bard. [to the Page] Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is 't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page. He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last I spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and so peeped through.

P. Hen. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away! P. Hen. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hen. A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis, boy. [Gives money. Poin. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! - Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. [Gives money. Bard. An you do not make him be hanged among you,

the gallows shall have wrong.

P. Hen. And how doth thy master, Bardolph ?

Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town: there's a letter for you.

[Gives a letter.

Poin. Delivered with good respect. And how doth the martlemas, your master?

Bard. In bodily health, sir.

Poin. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

P. Hen. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for look you how he writes. [Gives the letter to Pointz.

Poin. [reads] "John Falstaff, knight,” every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself: even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger but they say, "There's some of the king's blood spilt.' "How comes that?" says he, that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's cap, "I am the king's poor cousin, sir.'

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter:

Poin. [reads] "Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting." Why, this is a certificate.

P. Hen. Peace!

Poin. [reads] "I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:" sure he means brevity in breath, short-winded.

"I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Pointz; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.

"Thine, by yea and no (which is as much as to
say, as thou usest him), JACK FALSTAFF with
my familiars, JOHN with my brothers and
sisters, and SIR JOHN with all Europe."

My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.
P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words.
But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

Poin. God send the wench no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fools with the time; and