CLOWN. I'll give you a rhyme for that, sir--
Sick men may lie, and dead men in their graves.
Few else do lie abed at noon, but drunkards, punks, and knaves.

ILF. What am I the better for thy answer?

CLOWN. What am I the better for thy question?

ILF. Why, nothing.

CLOWN. Why, then, of nothing comes nothing.

_Enter_ SCARBOROW.

WEN. 'Sblood, this is a philosophical fool.

CLOWN. Then I, that am a fool by art, am better than you, that are fools
by nature. [_Exit_.

SCAR. Gentlemen, welcome to Yorkshire.

ILF. And well-encountered, my little villain of fifteen hundred a year.
'Sfoot, what makest thou here in this barren soil of the North, when
thy honest friends miss thee at London?

SCAR. Faith, gallants, 'tis the country where my father lived, where
first I saw the light, and where I am loved.

ILF. Loved! ay, as courtiers love usurers, and that is just as long as
they lend them money. Now, dare I lay--

WEN. None of your land, good knight, for that is laid to mortgage
already.

ILF. I dare lay with any man, that will take me up.

WEN. _Who list to have a lubberly load_. [_Sings this_.[334]

ILF. Sirrah wag, this rogue was son and heir to Antony Now-now[335] and
Blind Moon. And he must needs be a scurvy musician, that hath two
fiddlers to his fathers: but tell me, in faith, art thou not--nay, I
know thou art, called down into the country here by some hoary knight or
other who, knowing thee a young gentleman of good parts and a great
living, hath desired thee to see some pitiful piece of his workmanship
--a daughter, I mean. Is't not so?

SCAR. About some such preferment I came down.

ILF. Preferment's a good word. And when do you commence into the
cuckold's order--the preferment you speak of? when shall we have
gloves;[336] when, when?

SCAR. Faith, gallants, I have been guest here but since last night.

ILF. Why, and that is time enough to make up a dozen marriages, as
marriages are made up nowadays. For look you, sir; the father, according
to the fashion, being sure you have a good living, and without
encumbrance, comes to you thus:--takes you by the hand thus:--wipes his
long beard thus:--or turns up his moustachio thus:--walks some turn or
two thus:--to show his comely gravity thus:--and having washed his foul
mouth thus: at last breaks out thus.----

WEN. O God! let us hear no more of this?

ILF.----Master Scarborow, you are a young gentleman; I knew your
father well, he