, captain, some five and twenty: pray,
sir, will you present and accommodate it unto the gentleman? for
mine own part, I am a mere stranger to his humour; besides, I have
some business invites me hence, with master Asinius Lupus, the
tribune.

Tuc. Well, go thy ways, pursue thy projects, let me alone with
this design; my Poetaster shall make thee a play, and thou shalt be
a man of good parts in it. But stay, let me see; do not bring your
AEsop, your politician, unless you can ram up his mouth with
cloves; the slave smells ranker than some sixteen dunghills, and is
seventeen times more rotten. Marry, you may bring Frisker, my zany;
he's a good skipping swaggerer; and your fat fool there, my mango,
bring him too; but let him not beg rapiers nor scarfs, in his
over-familiar playing face, nor roar out his barren bold jests with
a tormenting laughter, between drunk and dry. Do you hear,
stiff-toe? give him warning, admonition, to forsake his saucy
glavering grace, and his goggle eye; it does not become him,
sirrah: tell him so. I have stood up and defended you, I, to
gentlemen, when you have been said to prey upon puisnes, and honest
citizens, for socks or buskins; or when they have call'd you
usurers or brokers, or said you were able to help to a piece of
flesh--I have sworn, I did not think so, nor that you were the
common retreats for punks decayed in their practice; I cannot
believe it of you.

Hist. Thank you, captain. Jupiter and the rest of the gods confine
your modern delights without disgust.

Tuc. Stay, thou shalt see the Moor ere thou goest.
[Enter DEMETRIUS at a distance.
What's he with the half arms there, that salutes us out of his
cloak, like a motion, ha?

Hist. O, sir, his doublet's a little decayed; he is otherwise a
very simple honest fellow, sir, one Demetrius, a dresser of plays
about the town here; we have hired him to abuse Horace, and bring
him in, in a play, with all his gallants, as Tibullus, Mecaenas,
Cornelius Gallus, and the rest.

Tuc. And why so, stinkard?

Hist. O, it will get us a huge deal of money, captain, and we have
need on't; for this winter has made us all poorer than so many
starved snakes: nobody comes at us, not a gentleman, nor a--

Tuc. But you know nothing by him, do you, to make a play of?

Hist. Faith, not much, captain; but our author will devise tha