The Alchemist - Ben Jonson (nice books to read txt) 📗

here in a hired coach, obscure,
  And our own coachman, whom I have sent as guide,
  No creature else.
  [KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
  Who's that?

  [EXIT DOL.]

  SUB. It is not he?

  FACE. O no, not yet this hour.

  [RE-ENTER DOL.]

  SUB. Who is't?

  DOL. Dapper,
  Your clerk.

  FACE. God's will then, queen of Fairy,
  On with your tire;
  [EXIT DOL.]
  and, doctor, with your robes.
  Let's dispatch him for God's sake.

  SUB. 'Twill be long.

  FACE. I warrant you, take but the cues I give you,
  It shall be brief enough.
  [GOES TO THE WINDOW.]
  'Slight, here are more!
  Abel, and I think the angry boy, the heir,
  That fain would quarrel.

  SUB. And the widow?

  FACE. No,
  Not that I see. Away!
  [EXIT SUB.]
  [ENTER DAPPER.]
  O sir, you are welcome.
  The doctor is within a moving for you;
  I have had the most ado to win him to it!—
  He swears you'll be the darling of the dice:
  He never heard her highness dote till now.
  Your aunt has given you the most gracious words
  That can be thought on.

  DAP. Shall I see her grace?

  FACE. See her, and kiss her too.—
  [ENTER ABEL, FOLLOWED BY KASTRIL.]
  What, honest Nab!
  Hast brought the damask?

  NAB. No, sir; here's tobacco.

  FACE. 'Tis well done, Nab; thou'lt bring the damask too?

  DRUG. Yes: here's the gentleman, captain, master Kastril,
  I have brought to see the doctor.

  FACE. Where's the widow?

  DRUG. Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.

  FACE. O, is it so? good time. Is your name Kastril, sir?

  KAS. Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I'd be sorry else,
  By fifteen hundred a year. Where is the doctor?
  My mad tobacco-boy, here, tells me of one
  That can do things: has he any skill?

  FACE. Wherein, sir?

  KAS. To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly,
  Upon fit terms.

  FACE. It seems, sir, you are but young
  About the town, that can make that a question.

  KAS. Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech
  Of the angry boys, and seen them take tobacco;
  And in his shop; and I can take it too.
  And I would fain be one of 'em, and go down
  And practise in the country.

  FACE. Sir, for the duello,
  The doctor, I assure you, shall inform you,
  To the least shadow of a hair; and shew you
  An instrument he has of his own making,
  Wherewith no sooner shall you make report
  Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on't
  Most instantly, and tell in what degree
  Of safety it lies in, or mortality.
  And how it may be borne, whether in a right line,
  Or a half circle; or may else be cast
  Into an angle blunt, if not acute:
  And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules
  To give and take the lie by.

  KAS. How! to take it?

  FACE. Yes, in oblique he'll shew you, or in circle;
  But never in diameter. The whole town
  Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily
  At the eating academies.

  KAS. But does he teach
  Living by the wits too?

  FACE. Anything whatever.
  You cannot think that subtlety, but he reads it.
  He made me a captain. I was a stark pimp,
  Just of your standing, 'fore I met with him;
  It is not two months since. I'll tell you his method:
  First, he will enter you at some ordinary.

  KAS. No, I'll not come there: you shall pardon me.

  FACE. For why, sir?

  KAS. There's gaming there, and tricks.

  FACE. Why, would you be
  A gallant, and not game?

  KAS. Ay, 'twill spend a man.

  FACE. Spend you! it will repair you when you are spent:
  How do they live by their wits there, that have vented
  Six times your fortunes?

  KAS. What, three thousand a-year!

  FACE. Ay, forty thousand.

  KAS. Are there such?

  FACE. Ay, sir,
  And gallants yet. Here's a young gentleman
  Is born to nothing,—
  [POINTS TO DAPPER.]
  forty marks a year,
  Which I count nothing:—he is to be initiated,
  And have a fly of the doctor. He will win you,
  By unresistible luck, within this fortnight,
  Enough to buy a barony. They will set him
  Upmost, at the groom porter's, all the Christmas:
  And for the whole year through, at every place,
  Where there is play, present him with the chair;
  The best attendance, the best drink; sometimes
  Two glasses of Canary, and pay nothing;
  The purest linen, and the sharpest knife,
  The partridge next his trencher: and somewhere
  The dainty bed, in private, with the dainty.
  You shall have your ordinaries bid for him,
  As play-houses for a poet; and the master
  Pray him aloud to name what dish he affects,
  Which must be butter'd shrimps: and those that drink
  To no mouth else, will drink to his, as being
  The goodly president mouth of all the board.

  KAS. Do you not gull one?

  FACE. 'Ods my life! do you think it?
  You shall have a cast commander, (can but get
  In credit with a glover, or a spurrier,
  For some two pair of either's ware aforehand,)
  Will, by most swift posts, dealing [but] with him,
  Arrive at competent means to keep himself,
  His punk and naked boy, in excellent fashion,
  And be admired for't.

  KAS. Will the doctor teach this?

  FACE. He will do more, sir: when your land is gone,
  As men of spirit hate to keep earth long,
  In a vacation, when small money is stirring,
  And ordinaries suspended till the term,
  He'll shew a perspective, where on one side
  You shall behold the faces and the persons
  Of all sufficient young heirs in town,
  Whose bonds are current for commodity;
  On th' other side, the merchants' forms, and others,
  That without help of any second broker,
  Who would expect a share, will trust such parcels:
  In the third square, the very street and sign
  Where the commodity dwells, and does but wait
  To be deliver'd, be it pepper, soap,
  Hops, or tobacco, oatmeal, woad, or cheeses.
  All which you may so handle, to enjoy
  To your own use, and never stand obliged.

  KAS. I'faith! is he such a fellow?

  FACE. Why, Nab here knows him.
  And then for making matches for rich widows,
  Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat'st man!
  He's sent to, far and near, all over England,
  To have his counsel, and to know their fortunes.

  KAS. God's will, my suster shall see him.

  FACE. I'll tell you, sir,
  What he did tell me of Nab. It's a strange thing:—
  By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy,
  And that same melancholy breeds worms; but pass it:—
  He told me, honest Nab here was ne'er at tavern
  But once in's life!

  DRUG. Truth, and no more I was not.

  FACE. And then he was so sick—

  DRUG. Could he tell you that too?

  FACE. How should I know it?

  DRUG. In troth we had been a shooting,
  And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper,
  That lay so heavy o' my stomach—

  FACE. And he has no head
  To bear any wine; for what with the noise of the fidlers,
  And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants—

  DRUG. My head did so ach—

  FACE. And he was fain to be brought home,
  The doctor told me: and then a good old woman—

  DRUG. Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal-lane,—did cure me,
  With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall;
  Cost me but two-pence. I had another sickness
  Was worse than that.

  FACE. Ay, that was with the grief
  Thou took'st for being cess'd at eighteen-pence,
  For the water-work.

  DRUG. In truth, and it was like
  T' have cost me almost my life.

  FACE. Thy hair went off?

  DRUG. Yes, sir; 'twas done for spight.

  FACE. Nay, so says the doctor.

  KAS. Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my suster;
  I'll see this learned boy before I go;
  And so shall she.

  FACE. Sir, he is busy now:
  But if you have a sister to fetch hither,
  Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner;
  And he by that time will be free.

  KAS. I go.

  [EXIT.]

  FACE. Drugger, she's thine: the damask!—
  [EXIT ABEL.]
  Subtle and I
  Must wrestle for her.
  [ASIDE.]
  —Come on, master Dapper,
  You see how I turn clients here away,
  To give your cause dispatch; have you perform'd
  The ceremonies were enjoin'd you?

  DAP. Yes, of the vinegar,
  And the clean shirt.

  FACE. 'Tis well: that shirt may do you
  More worship than you think. Your aunt's a-fire,
  But that she will not shew it, t' have a sight of you.
  Have you provided for her grace's servants?

  DAP. Yes, here are six score Edward shillings.

  FACE. Good!

  DAP. And an old Harry's sovereign.

  FACE. Very good!

  DAP. And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat,
  Just twenty nobles.

  FACE. O, you are too just.
  I would you had had the other noble in Maries.

  DAP. I have some Philip and Maries.

  FACE. Ay, those same
  Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the doctor.

  [ENTER SUBTLE, DISGUISED LIKE A PRIEST OF FAIRY,
  WITH A STRIPE OF CLOTH.]

  SUB [IN A FEIGNED VOICE]. Is yet her grace's cousin come?

  FACE. He is come.

  SUB. And is he fasting?

  FACE. Yes.

  SUB. And hath cried hum?

  FACE. Thrice, you must answer.

  DAP. Thrice.

  SUB. And as oft buz?

  FACE. If you have, say.

  DAP. I have.

  SUB. Then, to her cuz,
  Hoping that he hath vinegar'd his senses,
  As he was bid, the Fairy queen dispenses,
  By me, this robe, the petticoat of fortune;
  Which that he straight put on, she doth importune.
  And though to fortune near be her petticoat,
  Yet nearer is her smock, the queen doth note:
  And therefore, ev'n of that a piece she hath sent
  Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent;
  And prays him for a scarf he now will wear it,
  With as much love as then her grace did tear it,
  About his eyes,
  [THEY BLIND HIM WITH THE RAG,]
  to shew he is fortunate.
  And, trusting unto her to make his state,
  He'll throw away all worldly pelf about him;
  Which that he will perform, she doth not doubt him.

  FACE. She need not doubt him, sir. Alas, he has nothing,
  But what he will part withal as willingly,
  Upon her grace's word—throw away your purse—
  As she would ask it;—handkerchiefs and all—
  [HE THROWS AWAY, AS THEY BID HIM.]
  She cannot bid that thing, but he'll obey.—
  If you have a ring about you, cast it off,
  Or a silver seal at your wrist; her grace will send
  Her fairies here to search you, therefore deal
  Directly with her highness: if they find
  That you conceal a mite, you are undone.

  DAP. Truly, there's all.

  FACE. All what?

  DAP. My money; truly.

  FACE. Keep nothing that is transitory about you.
  [ASIDE TO SUBTLE.]
  Bid Dol play music.—
  [DOL PLAYS ON THE CITTERN WITHIN.]
  Look, the elves are come.
  To pinch you, if you tell not truth. Advise you.

  [THEY PINCH HIM.]

  DAP. O! I have a paper with a spur-ryal in't.

  FACE. Ti, ti.
  They knew't, they say.

  SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti. He has more yet.

  FACE. Ti, ti-ti-ti.
  [ASIDE TO SUB.]
  In the other pocket.

  SUB. Titi, titi, titi, titi, titi.
  They must pinch him or he will never confess, they say.

  [THEY PINCH HIM AGAIN.]

  DAP. O, O!

  FACE. Nay, pray you, hold: he is her grace's nephew,
  Ti, ti, ti? What care you? good faith, you shall care.—
  Deal plainly, sir, and shame the fairies. Shew
  You are innocent.

  DAP. By this good light, I have nothing.

  SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti, to, ta. He does equivocate she says:
  Ti, ti do ti, ti ti do, ti da;
  and swears by the LIGHT when he is blinded.

  DAP. By this good DARK, I have nothing