] my fiddlestick cannot play without rosin: avaunt.

WEN. Butler.

ILF. Dost not know me, butler?

BUT. For kex,[404] dried kex, that in summer has been so liberal to
fodder other men's cattle, and scarce have enough to keep your own in
winter. Mine are precious cabinets, and must have precious jewels put
into them, and I know you to be merchants of stock-fish, dry-meat,[405]
and not men for my market: then vanish.

ILF. Come, ye old madcap, you: what need all this? cannot a man have
been a little whoremaster in his youth, but you must upbraid him with
it, and tell him of his defects which, when he is married, his wife
shall find in him? Why, my father's dead, man, now; who by his death has
left me the better part of a thousand a year.

BUT. Tut, she of Lancashire has fifteen hundred.

ILF. Let me have her then, good butler.

BUT. And then she, the bright beauty of Leicestershire, has a thousand,
nay, thirteen hundred a year, at least.

ILF. O, let me have her, honest butler.

BUT. Besides, she the most delicate, sweet countenanced, black-browed
gentlewoman in Northamptonshire, in substance equals the best of them.

ILF. Let me have her then.

BAR. Or I.

WEN. Or I, good butler.

BUT. You were best play the parts of right fools and most desperate
whoremasters, and go together by the ears for them, ere ye see them.
But they are the most rare-featured, well-faced, excellent-spoke,
rare-qualitied, virtuous, and worthy-to-be-admired gentlewomen.

ALL. And rich, butler?

BUT. Ay, that must be one, though they want all the rest [_Aside_];
--and rich, gallants, as are from the utmost parts of Asia to the
present confines of Europe.

ALL. And wilt thou help us to them, butler?

BUT. Faith, 'tis to be doubted; for precious pearl will hardly be bought
without precious stones, and I think there's scarce one indifferent one
to be found betwixt you three: yet since there is some hope ye may prove
honest, as by the death of your fathers you are proved rich, walk
severally; for I, knowing you all three to be covetous tug-muttons, will
not trust you with the sight of each other's beauty, but will severally
talk with you: and since you have deigned in this needful portion of
wedlock to be ruled by me, Butler will most bountifully provide wives
for you generally.

ALL. Why, that's honestly said. [_He walks with each apart_.

BUT. Why so: and now first to you, sir knight.

ILF. Godamercy.

BUT. You see this