VALENTINE

Well, I see there's no living in London, The four winds have conspire to blow all the villainy of the world thither. When I returned from my short travel, I inquired, for the knot of my old companions. But Like and old Lady, that has much used painting, how suddenly are they broken! I herd of three or four in Bed lamb. Five or six in Bridewell. Half a score ith' Counter. a whole dozen at Tyburn. But O, numbers, numbers, un der the hands of Barber-surgeons. Some turned Squires to a Bro thell. Others walk Newgate lane. Some cheating in Ordinam rises. Others prigging in crowds. And the rest, either swom oh ver sea, or drowned upon a hill. Well, I do not Like these procee dings; there be so many rubs. I could now beg in Dutch, but its no speeding language. Now my villainy fails on the sea, I'll try what cheats the land has to work on. I learned some scurvy medicines of our Surgeon of the ship: & had no sooner set up my bills in Bedford here; but a Gouty cure comes halting to me. Fifty pounds I must have to heal him. Five and twenty I have in pawn: for the rest, I'll leave it with the next Quacksalver, that with more skill shall do him as little good. Pox of that head: more toys yet? Bind them, hamper the rogues. Serve a Habeas corpus on that fieri fancies. You should be some Lawyer, you stand so on your terms Faith, we must change professions with you, you must give's our fees. Sir, the remedy is very painful. I could give a tedious course of physic, worse then any sickness. Keep you fasting sixteen days together, save the diet I give you. Bind you to the post of patience every day ten hours; and have one still pour scaulding water on you: purge your very heart out: send your eyes out of their holes, to see how your feet do: make your guts bark worse, then and hundred dogs at a bearbaiting. But my medicine is sharp and short, but passing sure. Sir, there be four kinds of gout. Done: & to begin our trade, behold a customer. Stand close. Come, untruss, we have hast of business? Not mine. Indeed I anointed the score with butter, and the Tapsters own dog licked it out. Sir, nothing: specially of no cost. Do you see this ten-pen nigh nail? This nail I must driven through your great toe. Yes, bone & flesh too. Then fit and rot: be racked still, I'll be gone. You'll be Physician, will you? If you'll fit down and be cured, so: if not, farewell. Endure it manfully. It's but a brunt—so. nails him. You shall fit but a quarter of and hour, till I have been at the Upon thecaries, and then I'll lose you. Now farewell, gouty fool, Thou tookest no purge, yet hast a most sharp stool. Pray heavens, this kill him not. Well, let him fit. he takes away his purse with his keis And this shall go with me. I pray S r take your case. This plot has took; try if some new may hit. Word? what word? am I beleaguerd? Th'art and honest fellow, a very honest fellow. In good faith I had no great needs of money; but since thou hast brought me some, I'll not refuse it. Faith nor I. we'll even draw cuts, who shall ha'both. Good fortune grant, you be able to pay me for this pains. In sadness, I deserve double fees. Look that your case be good, I shall pick a hold in't else. Not altogether so: lest we be both hang.—Stand your ground. Zlid, I cannot abide these running Cocks. Would? a match—Throw by weapons, and lets embrace. As I'm true thief, thou mayest trust me. Would sirrah! Robin Hood, and the Pindar of Wakefield had not a stiffer bout. Shall we cling, Like a couple of Eels, not to be dissolved but by Thunder? You might ha'shot twice, and not hit it righter. Will you cast out the devil, and save's a conjuring. Now could I get in and rob them both —Hercules! He lays about him Like Orlando Furioso, or a coward turned desperate. Brave boy i'faith. We might ha'robd two and twenty Taffata-clok'd rorers, before this freese-iacket. O, your surly Boar is Like a bloudy'd Mastiff: when your spruce Pantalon bawls Like a whelp in a Tavern: yet at the sighed of cold iron runs, as if he had seen a Sergeant. Not not so much as pigeon. Put up thy cash my brave quin tessence of Hobbniols. Give me thy hand. How many thousand cudgels hast thou broken in thy days about a Maypole? I am a soldier, and in this vacation time am forced to do Like Lawyers; when suits do not make them, they make suits: because the wars will not maintain me, I maintain the wars. I set up my Bills in Bedford here, for a Physician, and dealt with Gripe for the Gout. I have a project to swell our purses till they burst. Will you second me? I have often herd the gripulous Dotard talk of Fairies: and how rich the house proves that they haunt. I have ripened the blister of his imagination to the full. Shall we lance it? I have keys that shall secure our conveyance. Is't a match? Two or three nights we'll scatter some small pieces of sil ver, till opportunity plump our project. Tarry till I lay the Lawyer in the amid of his clients. Are your talons bound Harpy? Thou liest now Like a Stallion new gelded, betwixt two Mares. This is a Distring is, sirrah. Farewell pettie-fogger. Shall we not shift ground? Where's the pettie-foggers Portmanteau? Lay't there. So, you shall see me catch a fat Pickerel, with this Gudgeon presently. Stand close. Soft, sirrah: it lies there for a wager. Marry, that who ever finds it, shall lose all the money in's purse. Judgement, Gentlemen: have they not lost the wager? Come then to pay, to pay. (Sure this is Gripe, my Bedford-Gowtie-Vsurer. Plague oh your stilts; what Carpenter set them up right? not my wimble, I hope. Be they all bound to the good forbearance? Tarry. Here comes another Jackdaw: let's pluck him, and take his feathers with us—stand. Brave Sir, so do not Lawyers always. But when you're paid your self, you'll give's our endue. No, because he misreckoned me. You may command my answer Sir, you are a Justice. Troth Sir, I have done so many cures, that I forget a number of my patients. Th'other day I cured a lunatic Cobbler, pitifully run out at soul, when he was given over by the Physicians. I let him blood, took three Hen-egges, sucked them out, into the shells I put his blood, set them under a brood-Goose. When she had hatched the rest, I gave these three putrified eggs to a Dog: the Dog grew mad, the Cobbler sober. And now my memory runs back, I call to mind one of Bedford, sick of the Gout, whom I cured. What is't Sir, that my Art cannot extend to? Sir, the disease is somewhat dangerous. Yet if that your expulsive faculty Retain true force, I'll warrant to make you piss. I must awhile withdraw to study Sir.— Now am I puzzled: blood, what medicine Should I devise to do't? It must be violent. Give him some Aquafortis; that would speed him. Let's see. Me thinks—a little Gunpowder Should have some strange relation to this fit. I have seen Gunpowder oft driven out stones From Forts and Castle-walls, huger then he Has any in his reins or bladder, sure. Faith,' cause I am a soldier, i'll make trial Of that same black and vaporous Mineral. I'll shoot into his belly: if the gun hold, I le give him charge enough: some Aquavitae First brewed together would allay it well. I'll swear to try it, if I do not miss, By a strange trick I'll make my Usurer piss. Sir, I'll go in and prepare for aou. Before you look for me, Sir,—if all fallen right, I vow to visit you again this night. Luck more, then we can carry, hath assigned us. Savage Wolf. Counterfeit ̄ mons horseleech. The Dropsy. What does Usury stick in thy teeth? spet out, Dog, spet out. Now thou gapest for a mortgage. Dost? But hear you? Deliver it not to any one of us. Except all three demand it to gether, keep it still. Gone, sayest thou? and with the money? fire and gun powder! how are we blown up? Ostice— You are a cozening woman. Furies and Fiends! wits, you do fairly strive. My Lord, I challenge this widow for cheating me of 300. pounds. This is one of her old tricks. My Lord, my self and two entrusted friends Came hither to pay money on a bound, While the receiver did defer his coming; We gave this cozening woman, being Hostice, The whole sum to lay up: and straightly charged her, Not to deliuer't, but to us all together. She says one of us three demanded it Of her in haste, and ran away: and thus We lost our money, and the bound lies forfeit. No, Sir, let it even go. I am cob'd. Well, if there be no remedy, I hope, I shall not dance alone upon the rope. My lord, here's the other Fairy. It is most true, my lord, she plotted all. Curf. My lord, the woman's clear. Now have I, Like a Parasite, covered my back with brains. Out of my usurers Gouty toe, I have spun a fair suit. I would feign hear, whither the devil be dead or no. Yet I needs not be so inquisitive, for I'm sure he has give ̄ me nothing in'swill. Now am I in quest of some vaulting house. I would feign spend these crowns, as I God them, in conycatching. I ha'the game in sent, & will follow it with full cry. Open thy jaws thou yawning sepulcher: Here is a morsel for and Usurer.