Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices FALSTAFF Come, sir, which men shall I have? SHALLOW Four of which you please. BARDOLPH Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf. FALSTAFF Go to; well. SHALLOW Come, Sir John, which four will you have? FALSTAFF Do you choose for me. SHALLOW Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow. FALSTAFF Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service: and for your part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you. SHALLOW Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong:
they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. FALSTAFF Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. BARDOLPH Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. FALSTAFF Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i'
faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee. SHALLOW He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn--I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,--there was a little quiver fellow, and a'
would manage you his piece thus; and a' would about and about, and come you in and come you in: 'rah, tah, tah,' would a' say; 'bounce' would a' say;and away again would a' go, and again would a' come:
Ishall ne'er see such a fellow. FALSTAFF These fellows will do well, Master Shallow.
God keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. SHALLOW Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;peradventure I will with ye to the court. FALSTAFF 'Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow. SHALLOW Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you. FALSTAFF Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
Exeunt Justices On, Bardolph; lead the men away.
Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, & c As I return, I will fetch off these justices:
I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street: and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a'
was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: a' was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible:
a'
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a'
came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him;and I'll be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin;the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but Imay snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.