E: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.

CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.

TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance.

CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar.

TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that
pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of
books in him!

CLER: The world reports him to be very learned.

TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him.

CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him.

TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that:
would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman.

[EXIT HASTILY.]

CLER: This is very abrupt!

DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus.

CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow.

DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for
secrets.

CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been
well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily.

DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried,
it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I
am for you.

CLER: When were you there?

DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace
never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the
wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires
that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in
verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man
made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is
not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state.

CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water,
boy.

[EXIT PAGE.]

DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came
thither to him, sir La-Foole.

CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin.

DAUP: Do you know him?

CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once,
though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is
one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute
a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when
he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a
masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and
invites his guests to them, aloud, o