Hist.  Faith, not much, captain; but our author will devise that that shall serve in some sort.

Tuc.  Why, my Parnassus here shall help him, if thou wilt.  Can thy author do it impudently enough?

Hist.  O, I warrant you, captain, and spitefully enough too; he has one of tho most overflowing rank wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes, if he disgust him.

Tuc.  I’ll know the poor, egregious, nitty rascal; an he have these

commendable qualities, I’ll cherish him—­stay, here comes the Tartar—­I’ll make a gathering for him, I, a purse, and put the poor slave in fresh rags; tell him so to comfort him.—­
                                       [Demetrius comes forward.

Be-enter Minos, with 2 Pyrgus on his shoulders, and stalks
backward and forward, as the boy acts.

Well said, boy.

2 Pyr. 
   Where art thou, boy? where is Calipolis? 
   Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth,
   And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades;
   Some foul contagion of the infected heavens
   Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops
   The dismal night raven and tragic owl
   Breed and become forerunners of my fall!

Tuc.  Well, now fare thee well, my honest penny-biter:  commend me to seven shares and a half, and remember to-morrow.—­If you lack a service, you shall play in my name, rascals; but you shall buy your own cloth, and I’ll have two shares for my countenance.  Let thy author stay with me.
                                              [Exit Histrio. 
Dem.  Yes, sir.

Tuc.  ’Twas well done, little Minos, thou didst stalk well:  forgive me that I said thou stunk’st; Minos; ’twas the savour of a poet I met sweating in the street, hangs yet in my nostrils.

Cris.  Who, Horace?

Tuc.  Ay, he; dost thou know him ?

Cris.  O, he forsook me most barbarously, I protest.

Tuc.  Hang him, fusty satyr, he smells all goat; he carries a ram under his arm-holes, the slave:  I am the worse when I see him.—­ Did not Minos impart? [Aside to Crispinus.

Cris.  Yes, here are twenty drachms he did convey.

Tuc.  Well said, keep them, we’ll share anon; come, little Minos.

Cris.  Faith, captain, I’ll be bold to shew you a mistress of mine, a jeweller’s wife, a gallant, as we go along.

Tuc.  There spoke my genius.  Minos, some of thy eringos, little
Minos; send.  Come hither, Parnassus, I must have thee familiar with
my little locust here; ’tis a good vermin, they say.—­
                        [Horace and Trebatius pass over the stage.]
See, here’s Horace, and old Trebatius, the great lawyer, in his
company; let’s avoid him now, he is too well seconded.
          
                                              [Exeunt.

Activ

Scene I.-A Room