University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Enter MILPHIO, and COLLYBISCUS, dressed like a person of condition.
Mil.
[to Collybiscus.]
You have your lesson well by heart?—

Col.
Exactly.

Mil.
Take care you understand it.

Col.
No more words.
Why, your own legs don't understand you better.

Mil.
Come, practice all your speeches for the plot.

Col.
Tragic nor comic actor cannot be
More perfect—

Mil.
You're the man for me.

Ago.
I'll join them.
Here are my witnesses [to Milphio.]
all ready, see.

Mil.
You never could have found so many men,
Men fit for the purpose: they have no vacation:
Meer knights o'th'post—They always live in court,
And there you'll see them oftner than the Prætor.
There's not a man of law this day in Athens
More fit to stir up barratry than these—
For if no suits were found, these men would sow them.

Wit.
The Gods confound thee!

Mil.
[aside.]
You into the bargain.
By Hercules! in this you've acted kindly,
[to the witnesses.]
To aid my love-sick master—Are they well
[to Agorastocles.]
Instructed in this business?

Ago.
In the whole of it.

Mil.
Well, mind me then.—Know you this pandar, Lycus?

Wit.
Yes, perfectly.

Col.
I know him not by sight;
Pray, point him out—

Wit.
We shall take care of that.
We have our full instructions.

Ago.
Here he has got
[pointing to Collyb.]
Three hundred pieces in full tale.

Wit.
But we
Would see the money, Agorastocles,
To know what evidence to give anon.

Ago.
Then look upon't—'tis gold.

Col.
Spectators, troth
'Tis play-house gold: with this well steep'd, in Barbary
You might fat oxen—But for our design,
'Tis Philippæan—

Wit.
We'll pretend it is so.

Col.
Pretend too, that I'm a foreigner.

Wit.
And that
On your arrival here to-day, you ask'd us
To point you out a place, where in the joys
Of love and wine, you might indulge yourself—

Mil.
Thorough-pac'd rogues!

Ago.
For I've instructed them.

Mil.
And who instructed you?—

Col.
Come Agorastocles,
Go in, for fear the pandar should discover
That you are with me; some unlucky accident
May then bring on a hindrance of our plot.

Mil.
This man's exceeding wise!—Do as he bids you.

[to Agorastocles.
Ago.
Let's go—But you—Have I yet said enough?

[to the witnesses.
Col.
Pray go.

Ago.
I go—I ask!—Immortal gods!—

Col.
Why don't you go?

Ago.
I'm going—

Mil.
Wise to do so.

[Exeunt Ago. and Milphio.
Col.
Hist!—silence!—hist!

Wit.
What now?

Col.
The doors have done
A thing indecent.

Wit.
What d'ye say? indecent?

Col.
They've creak'd aloud.

Wit.
Confound you! get behind us.

Col.
It shall be so—

Wit.
Well, we walk first, you say.

Col.
So—These buffoons are playing their old game;
They're placing of their friends behind their backs.

Wit.
The man you see there coming out's the pandar.

Col.
He's a good man, he looks so like a rogue.
Now will I suck his blood, ev'n at this distance—