budget,
Then my account I well may give
And in the stocks avouch it.

My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.
My father named me Autolycus; who being, I as am, littered under
Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With
die and drab I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the
silly-cheat: gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway;
beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I
sleep out the thought of it.--A prize! a prize!

[Enter CLOWN.]

CLOWN.
Let me see:--every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound
and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

AUTOLYCUS.
[Aside.] If the springe hold, the cock's mine.

CLOWN.
I cannot do't without counters.--Let me see; what am I to
buy for our sheep-shearing feast? 'Three pound of sugar; five
pound of currants; rice'--what will this sister of mine do with
rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she
lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the
shearers,--three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they
are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them,
and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour
the warden pies; 'mace--dates',--none, that's out of my note;
'nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger',--but that I may beg;
'four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun.'

AUTOLYCUS.
[Grovelling on the ground.] O that ever I was born!

CLOWN.
I' the name of me,--

AUTOLYCUS.
O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then, death,
death!

CLOWN.
Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee,
rather than have these off.

AUTOLYCUS.
O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the stripes
I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.

CLOWN.
Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

AUTOLYCUS.
I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me,
and these detestable things put upon me.

CLOWN.
What, by a horseman or a footman?

AUTOLYCUS.
A footman, sweet sir, a footman.

CLOWN.
Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left
with thee: if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot
service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy
hand.

[Helping him up.]

AUTOLYCUS.
O, good sir, tenderly, O!

CLOWN.
Alas, poor soul!

AUTOLYCUS.
O, good sir, softly, good sir: I