short, quick, snap.
Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
from Master Slender.
There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about
with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go
knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian
unto thee: knock, I say.
There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his
chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come
down; I come to speak with her, indeed.
Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll
call. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from
thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine
host, thine Ephesian, calls.
How now, mine host!
Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her
descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy?
fie!
There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with
me; but she's gone.
Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
Brentford?
Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her?
My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing
her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether
one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the
chain or no.
I spake with the old woman about it.
And what says she, I pray, sir?
Marry, she says that the very same man that
beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of
it.
I would I could have spoken with the woman herself;
I had other things to have spoken with her too from
him.
What are they? let us know.
Ay, come; quick.
I may not conceal them, sir.
Conceal them, or thou diest.
Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne
Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to
have her or no.
'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
What, sir?
To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so.
May I be bold to say so, sir?
Ay, sir; like who more bold.
I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad
with these tidings.
Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
there a wise woman with thee?
Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught
me more wit than ever I learned before in my life;
and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for
my learning.
Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage!
Where