Enter Hostess.

How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you inquired yet, who picked my pocket?

Host. Why, sir John! what do you think, sir Johu? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

Fal. You lie, hostess; Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked: Go to, you are a woman, go.

Host. Who, I? I defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before.

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.

Host. No, sir John; you do not know me, sir John: I know you, sir John: you owe me money, sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and mo. ney lent you, four and twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.

Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

In the story-book of Reynard the Fox.

Act III. Fal. How! the prince is a Jack*, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

Enter Prince Henry and Poins, marching. Falstaff meets the Prince, playing on his truncheon like a fife.

Fal. How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i'faith? must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion.
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well, he is an honest man.

Host. Good my lord, hear me.

Fal. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me.

P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house, they pick pockets.

P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack?

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

P. Hen. A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said, I heard your grace say so: And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said, he would cudgel you.

P. Hen. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor woman. hood in me else.

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Mariant

* A term of contempt frequently used by Shakspeare.

+ A man dressed like a woman, who attends morris-dancers.

may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

Host. Say, what thing? what thing?

Fal. What thing? why, a thing to thank God on. Host, I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou should'st know it; I am an honest man's wife: and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou?
Fal. What beast? why, an otter.

P. Hen. An otter, sir John? why an otter? Fal. Why? she's neither fish, nor flesh knows not where to have her.

; a man

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou!

P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly..

Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound.

P. Hen. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.

Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said, he would cudgel you.

Fal. Did I, Bardolph ?

Bard. Indeed, sir John, you said so.

Fal. Yea; if he said, my ring was copper.

P. Hen. I say, 'tis copper: Darest thou be as good as thy word now?

Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but, as thou art prince, I fear thee, as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp.

P. Hen. And why not, as the lion?

Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion: Dost thou think, I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break!

P. Hen. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall

Act III. about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom of thine; it is filled up with guts, and midriff. Charge an ho nest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed* rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy, to make thee long-winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong: Art thou not ashamed?

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest, in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villainy? Thou seest, I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty.You confess then, you picked my pocket?

P. Hen. It appears so by the story.

Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee: Go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest, I am pacified.-Still? -Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad,How is that answered ?

P. Hen. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee:-The money is paid back again. Ful. O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labour.

P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with unwashed hands too.

Bard. Do, my lord.

P. Hen. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.

Fal. I would, it had been of horse. Where shall

• Swoln, puffy.

I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty, or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous; I laud them, I praise them.

P. Hen. Bardolph

Bard. My lord.

P. Hen. Go bear this letter to lord John of Lan

caster,

My brother John; this to my lord of Westmore

land.

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou, and I,
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.-
Jack,

Meet me to-morrow i'the Temple hall,

At two o'clock i'the afternoon:

There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive

Money, and order for their furniture.

The land is burning; Percy stands on high;

And either they, or we, must lower lie.

[Exeunt Prince, Poins, and Bardolph. Fal. Rare words! brave world!Hostess, my

breakfast, come:

O, I could wish, this tavern were my drum.

[Exit.