SCENE II. A Room in the Garter Inn.

Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL.

Fal. I will not lend thee a penny.

Pist. Why, then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

I will retort the sum in equipage.1

2

Fal. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my countenance to pawn: I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through the grate like a gemini of baboons. I am damned in hell, for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were good soldiers, and tall fellows: and when mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took't upon mine honor, thou hadst it not.

Pist. Didst thou not share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?

4

Fal. Reason, you rogue, reason: think'st thou, I'll endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me; I am no gibbet for you:-go.-A short knife and a throng; 3-to your manor of Pickt-hatch, go.-You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you stand upon your honor!--Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honor precise. I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honor in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your

1 Equipage appears to have been a cant term, which Warburton conjectured to mean stolen goods. Mr. Steevens thinks it means attendance; i. e. "if you will lend me the money, I will pay you again in attendance," but has failed to produce an example of the use of the word in that sense. 2 i. e. he who draws along with you, who is joined with you in all your knavery.

3 i. e. go and cut purses in a crowd.

4 Pick't-hatch was in Turnbull Street, Cow Cross, Clerkenwell, a haunt of the worst part of both sexes. The unseasonable and obstreperous irruptions of the swash-bucklers of that age rendered a hatch, or half-door with spikes upon it, a necessary defence to a brothel.

rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice 1 phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honor! You will not do it, you?

Pist. I do relent; what would'st thou more of man?

Enter ROBIN.

Rob. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you. Fal. Let her approach.

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.

Quick. Give your worship good-morrow.
Fal. Good-morrow, good wife.

Quick. Not so, an't please your worship.

Fal. Good maid, then.

Quick. I'll be sworn; as my mother was, the first hour I was born.

Fal. I do believe the swearer: What with me? Quick. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

Fal. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing.

Quick. There is one Mistress Ford, sir;-I pray, come a little nearer this ways:-I myself dwell with master doctor Caius.

Fal. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,

Quick. Your worship says very true:-I pray your worship, come a little nearer this ways.

Fal. I warrant thee, nobody hears;-mine own people, mine own people.

Quick. Are they so?

make them his servants!

Heaven bless them, and

Lord,

Fal. Well: mistress Ford:-what of her?
Quick. Why, sir, she's a good creature.
Lord! your worship's a wanton: Well, heaven forgive
you, and all of us, I pray!

Fal. Mistress Ford :-come, mistress Ford,-
Quick. Marry, this is the short and the long of it;

1 Alehouse language. Red lattice windows formerly denoted an alehouse.

you have brought her into such a canaries1 as 'tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, (all musk,) and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best, and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.-I had myself twenty angels given me this morning: but I defy all angels, (in any such sort, as they say,) but in the way of honesty :--and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners; 2 but I warrant you, all is one with her.

Fal. But what says she to me? be brief, my good she Mercury.

Quick. Marry, she hath received your letter; for the which she thanks you a thousand times: and she gives you to notify, that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven.

Quick. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot of;-master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him; he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very frampold life with him, good heart.

3

Fal. Ten and eleven: Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her.

Quick. Why, you say well:-But I have another messenger to your worship: Mrs. Page hath her hearty commendations to you, too;-and let me tell

1 A mistake of Mrs. Quickly's for quandaries.

2 i. e. gentlemen of the band of Pensioners. Their dress was remarkably splendid.

3 Frampold here means fretful, peevish.