University of Virginia Library

Scene. II.

Peny-boy. Can.
Peny-boy. Iv. Picklock. Tho. Barbar.
How now? conferring wi'your learned Counsell,
Vpo' the Cheat? Are you o'the plot to coozen mee?

P. Iv.
What plot?

P. Se.
Your Counsell knowes there, Mr Picklock,
Will you restore the Trust yet?

Pic.
Sir, take patience.
And memory vnto you, and bethinke you,
What Trust? where dost appeare? I haue your Deed,
Doth your Deed specifie any Trust? Is't not
A perfect Act? and absolute in Law?
Seal'd and deliuer'd before witnesses?
The day and date, emergent.

P. Ca.
But what conference?
What othes, and vowes preceded?

Pic.
I will tell you, Sir,
Since I am vrg'd of those, as I remember,
You told me you had got a growen estate,
By griping meanes, sinisterly.

P. Ca.
(How!)

Pic.
And were
Eu'n weary of it; if the parties liued,
From whom you had wrested it—

P. Ca.
(Ha!)

Pic.
You could be glad,
To part with all, for satisfaction:
But since they had yeelded to humanity,
And that iust heauen had sent you, for a punishment
(You did acknowledge it) this riotous heyre,
That would bring all to beggery in the end,
And daily sow'd consumption, where he went—

P. Ca.
You old coozen both, then? your Confederate, too?

Pic.
After a long, mature deliberation,
You could not thinke, where, better, how to place it—

P. Ca.
Then on you, Rascall?

Pic.
What you please i'your passion,
But with your reason, you will come about
And thinke a faithfull, and a frugall friend
To be preferr'd.

P. Ca.
Before a Sonne?

Pic.
A Prodigall,
A tubbe without a bottome, as you term'd him;
For which, I might returne you a vow, or two,
And seale it with an oath of thankfulnesse,
I not repent it, neither haue I cause, Yet—

P. Ca.
Fore-head of steele, and mouth of brasse! hath impudence
Polish'd so grosse a lie, and dar'st thou vent it?
Engine, compos'd of all mixt mettalls! hence,
I will not change a syllab, with thee, more,
Till I may meet thee, at a Barre in Court,
Before thy Iudges.

Pic.
Thither it must come,
His Son entreats him.
Before I part with it, to you, or you, Sir.

P. Ca.
I will not heare thee.

P. Iv.
Sir, your eare to mee, though.
Not that I see through his perplexed plots,
And hidden ends, nor that my parts depend
Vpon the vnwinding this so knotted skeane,
Doe I beseech your patience. Vnto mee
He hath confest the trust.

Pic.
How? I confesse it?

P. Iv.
I thou, false man.

P. Se.
Stand vp to him, & confront him.

Pic.
Where? when? to whom?

P. Iv.
To me, euen now, and here,
Canst thou deny it?

Pic.
Can I eate, or drinke?
Sleepe, wake, or dreame? arise, sit, goe, or stand?
Doe any thing that's naturall?

P. Iv.
Yes, lye:
It seemes thou canst, and periure: that is naturall!

Pic.
O me! what time are these! of frontlesse carriage!
An Egge o'the same nest! the Fathers Bird!
It runs in a blood, I see!

P. Iv.
I'll stop your mouth.

Pic.
With what?

P. Iv.
With truth.

Pic.
With noise, I must haue witnes.
Where is your witnes? you can produce witnes?

P. Iv.
As if my testimony were not twenty,
Balanc'd with thine?

Pic.
So say all Prodigalls,
Sicke of selfe-loue, but that's not Law, young Scatter-good.
I liue by Law.

P. Iv.
Why? if thou hast a conscience,
That is a thoussnd witnesses.

Pic.
No, Court,
Grants out a Writ of Summons, for the Conscience,
That I know, nor Sub-pæna, nor Attachment.
I must haue witnesse, and of your producing,
Ere this can come to hearing, and it must
Hee produceth Thom.
Be heard on oath, and witnesse.

P. Iv.
Come forth, Thom,
Speake what thou heard'st, the truth, and the whole truth,
And nothing but the truth. What said this varlet?

Pic.
A rat behind the hangings!

Tho.
Sir, he said
It was a Trust! an Act, the which your Father
Had will to alter: but his tender brest
Would not permit to see the heyre defrauded;
And like an alyen, thrust out of the blood.
The Lawes forbid that he should giue consent
To such a ciuill slaughter of a Sonne—

P. Iv.
And talk'd of a gratuitie to be giuen,
And ayd vnto the charges of the suite;
Which he was to maintaine, in his owne name,
But for my vse, he said.

P. Ca.
It is enough.

Tho.
And he would milke Pecunia, and draw downe
Her creame, before you got the Trust, againe.

P. Ca.
Your eares are in my pocket, Knaue, goe shake 'hem,
The little while you haue them.

Pic.
You doe trust
To your great purse.

P. Ca.
I ha' you in a purse-net,
Good Master Picklocke, wi' your worming braine,
And wrigling ingine-head of maintenance,
Which I shall see you hole with, very shortly.
A fine round head, when those two lugs are off,
To trundle through a Pillory. You are sure
You heard him speake this?

P. Iv.
I, and more.

Tho.
Much more!

Pic.
I'll proue yours maintenance, and combination,
And sue you all.

P. Ca.
Doe, doe, my gowned Vulture,
Crop in Reuersion: I shall see you coyted
Ouer the Barre, as Barge-men doe their billets.

Pic.
This 'tis, when men repent of their good deeds,
And would ha'hem in againe—They are almost mad!
But I forgiue their Lucida Interualla.
O, Lickfinger? come hither. Where's my writing?

Pick-lock spies Lickfinger, and askes him aside for the writing.