He never drinks below the salt. He does
naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace, or tissue: stabs
any man that speaks more contemptibly of the scholar than he. He
is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating,
drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to
pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco. He
will blaspheme in his shirt. The oaths which he vomits at one
supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a
twelvemonth. One other genuine quality he has which crowns all
these, and that is this: to a friend in want, he will not depart
with the weight of a soldered groat, lest the world might censure
him prodigal, or report him a gull: marry, to his cockatrice or
punquetto, half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles in a pair or
two of months, why, they are nothing.
CUP. I commend him, he is one of my clients.
[THEY RETIRE TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE.]
ENTER AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, AND COS.
AMO. Come, sir. You are now within regard of the presence, and
see, the privacy of this room how sweetly it offers itself to our
retired intendments. -- Page, cast a vigilant and enquiring eye
about, that we be not rudely surprised by the approach of some
ruder stranger.
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