KN. Your turn, coz? Do you know what you say? A gentleman of your sort, parts, carriage, and estimation, to talk o' your turn i' this company, and to me, alone, like a tankard-bearer, at a conduit! Fie. A wight, that, hitherto, his every step hath left the stamp of a great foot behind him, as every word the savour of a strong spirit! And he! This man! So graced, gilded, or (to use a more fit metaphor) so tin-foiled by nature, as not ten housewives' pewter (again' a good time) shows more bright to the world than he! And he (as I said last, so I say again, and still shall say it) this man! To conceal such real ornaments as these, and shadow their glory, as a milliner's wife does her wrought stomacher, with a smoky lawn, or a black cypress? Oh, coz! It cannot be answered, go not about it. Drake's old ship, at Deptford, may sooner circle the world again. Come, wrong not the quality of your desert, with looking downward, coz; but hold up your head, so: and let the Idea of what you are be portrayed i' your face, that men may read i' your physiognomy, »Here, within this place, is to be seen the true, rare, and accomplished monster, or miracle of nature«, which is all one. What think you of this, coz?

STE. Why, I do think of it; and I will be more proud, and melancholy, and gentleman-like, than I have been: I'll ensure you.

E. KN. Why, that's resolute, Master Stephen! Aside Now, if I can but hold him up to his height, as it is happily begun, it will do well for a suburb-humour: we may hap have a match with the city, and play him for forty pound. Come, coz.

STE. I'll follow you.

E. KN. Follow me? You must go before.

STE. Nay, an' I must, I will. Pray you, show me, good cousin.

 

Exeunt

 

 

Scene 4

Before Cob's house

 

Enter Master Matthew

 

MAT. I think this be the house: what, ho?

 

Enter Cob

 

COB. Who's there? Oh, Master Matthew! Gi' your worship good-morrow.

MAT. What! Cob! How dost thou, good Cob? Dost thou inhabit here, Cob?

COB. Aye, sir, I and my lineage ha' kept a poor house here, in our days.

MAT. Thy lineage, Monsieur Cob, what lineage? What lineage?

COB. Why, sir, an ancient lineage, and a princely. Mine ancestry came from a king's belly, no worse man: and yet no man neither (by your worship's leave, I did lie in that) but Herring the king of fish (from his belly, I proceed) one o' the monarchs o' the world, I assure you. The first red herring that was broiled in Adam and Eve's kitchen do I fetch my pedigree from, by the harrot's books. His cob was my great-great-mighty-great grandfather.

MAT. Why mighty? Why mighty? I pray thee.

COB. Oh, it was a mighty while ago, sir, and a mighty great cob.

MAT. How knowst thou that?

COB. How know I? Why, I smell his ghost, ever and anon.

MAT. Smell a ghost? Oh, unsavoury jest! And the ghost of a herring, Cob!

COB. Aye, sir, with favour of your worship's nose, Master Matthew, why not the ghost of a herring- cob, as well as the ghost of rasher-bacon?

MAT.