SCENE II.-London. A Street

Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his
sword and buckler

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me : the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel,—the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will

sooner have a beard grow

in the palm of my hand

than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal. God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the security.

Fal. Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! A rascally 'yea-forsooth' knave, to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security !-The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends

me security.

Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait close; I will not see him.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice and an
Attendant

Ch. Just. What's he that goes there?

Atten. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of any. thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John,—

Fal. What a young knave, and beg? Is there not wars? is there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt-counter, hence !

avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!—God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health.

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, God mend him!—I pray you, let me speak with

you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read