And I stayed i' the fields! Whoreson scander- bag rogue! Oh that I had but a horse to fetch him back again.

BRA. Why, you may ha' my master's gelding, to save your longing, sir.

STE. But, I ha' no boots, that's the spite on't.

BRA. Why, a fine wisp of hay, rolled hard, Master Stephen.

STE. No faith, it's no boot to follow him now: let him e'en go, and hand. Pray thee, help to truss me a little. He does so vex me –

BRA. You'll be worse vexed when you are trussed, Master Stephen. Best keep unbraced; and walk yourself till you be cold: your choler may founder you else.

STE. By my faith, and so I will, now thou tellst me on't. How dost thou like my leg, Brainworm?

BRA. A very good leg, Master Stephen! But the woollen stocking does not commend it so well.

STE. Foh, the stockings be good enough, now summer is coming on, for the dust. I'll have a pair of silk again' winter, that I go to dwell i' the town. I think my leg would show in a silk-hose.

BRA. Believe me, Master Stephen, rarely well.

STE. In sadness, I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg.

BRA. You have an excellent good leg, Master Stephen, but I cannot stay to praise it longer now, and I am very sorry for it.

STE. Another time will serve, Brainworm. Gramercy for this.

 

Exit Brainworm

 

E. KN laughs having read the letter. Ha, ha, ha!

STE. 'Slid, I hope, he laughs not at me, and he do –

E. KN. Here was a letter, indeed, to be intercepted by a man's father, and do him good with him! He cannot but think most virtuously, both of me and the sender, sure; that make the careful costermonger of him in our familiar Epistles. Well, if he read this with patience, I'll be gelt, and troll ballads for Master John Trundle, yonder, the rest of my mortality. It is true, and likely, my father may have as much patience as another man; for he takes much physic: and oft taking physic makes a man very patient. But would your packet, Master Wellbred, had arrived at him in such a minute of his patience; then we had known the end of it, which now is doubtful, and threatens – What! My wise cousin! Nay, then, I'll furnish our feast with one gull more toward the mess. He writes to me of a brace, and here's one, that's three: oh, for a fourth; Fortune, if ever thou'lt use thine eyes, I entreat thee –

STE. Oh, now I see who he laughed at.