SIR P: Sir, I must crave
Your courteous pardon. There hath chanced to-day,
Unkind disaster 'twixt my lady and me;
And I was penning my apology,
To give her satisfaction, as you came now.

PER: Sir, I am grieved I bring you worse disaster:
The gentleman you met at the port to-day,
That told you, he was newly arrived--

SIR P: Ay, was
A fugitive punk?

PER: No, sir, a spy set on you;
And he has made relation to the senate,
That you profest to him to have a plot
To sell the State of Venice to the Turk.

SIR P: O me!

PER: For which, warrants are sign'd by this time,
To apprehend you, and to search your study
For papers--

SIR P: Alas, sir, I have none, but notes
Drawn out of play-books--

PER: All the better, sir.

SIR P: And some essays. What shall I do?

PER: Sir, best
Convey yourself into a sugar-chest;
Or, if you could lie round, a frail were rare:
And I could send you aboard.

SIR P: Sir, I but talk'd so,
For discourse sake merely.

[KNOCKING WITHIN.]

PER: Hark! they are there.

SIR P: I am a wretch, a wretch!

PER: What will you do, sir?
Have you ne'er a currant-butt to leap into?
They'll put you to the rack, you must be sudden.

SIR P: Sir, I have an ingine--

3 MER [WITHIN.]: Sir Politick Would-be?

2 MER [WITHIN.]: Where is he?

SIR P: That I have thought upon before time.

PER: What is it?

SIR P: I shall ne'er endure the torture.
Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell,
Fitted for these extremities: pray you, sir, help me.
Here I've a place, sir, to put back my legs,
Please you to lay it on, sir,
[LIES DOWN WHILE PEREGRINE PLACES THE SHELL UPON HIM.]
--with this cap,
And my black gloves. I'll lie, sir, like a tortoise,
'Till they are gone.

PER: And call you this an ingine?

SIR P: Mine own device--Good sir, bid my wife's women
To burn my papers.

[EXIT PEREGRINE.]

[THE THREE MERCHANTS RUSH IN.]

1 MER: Where is he hid?

3 MER: We must,
And will sure find him.

2 MER: Which is his study?

[RE-ENTER PEREGRINE.]

1 MER: What
Are you, sir?

PER: I am a merchant, that came here
To look upon this tortoise.

3 MER: How!

1 MER: St. Mark!