_Enter_ GUM, _a tooth-drawer_.
GUM. Have you any corns upon your feet or toes? any teeth to
draw? O, for a flood now or a whole year of rain, that every
step may be up to the ankles in water, and cover every toe with
a corn! May the shoemakers make all their shoes too strait,
that they may pinch the sore-toed miser, and at every tread
put him in mind of work for the corn-cutter! May the toothache
be an hereditary disease, and prove infectious, or so many
aldermen be turned into marble that the whole city may get
rotten teeth with eating of sugar-plums and sweetmeats at their
funerals.
_Enter_ DITTY.
DITTY. _The Seven Wise Men of Gotam_, _a Hundred Merry
Tales_, _Scoggin's Jests_, or _A Book of Prayers and Graces
for Young Children_.
GUM. What news-books, Ditty? Any proclamations that they must
forfeit all their toes that have no corns, or that they must
never eat good victuals that have not the toothache? Are red
mufflers and slashed shoes come into fashion? They are as sure
signs of the ache of teeth and toes as a red lattice of an
alehouse.
DITTY. No, truly, Master Gum, I have none of these books, but I
have as good. I have very strange news from beyond seas.
GUM. What is't? Do they want corn-cutters or tooth-drawers?
prythee, let's hear it.
DITTY. The King of Morocco has got the black jaundice, and the
Duke of Westphalia is sick of the swine-pox with eating bacon;
the Moors increase daily, and the King of Cyprus mourns for the
Duke of Saxony, that is dead of the stone; and Presbyter John
is advanced to Zealand; the sea ebbs and flows but twice in
four-and-twenty hours, and the moon has changed but once the
last month.
GUM. Hold, hold! here's enough to tire the dove's neck, before
she gets home.
_Enter_ BUDGET.
BUD. Well, I must strike whilst the iron's hot. Good Vulcan,
be assistant, and grant that some spark of love may be kindled
in her heart, and that I may with my compliments, as with the
bellows of rhetoric, blow the coals of good-will, and with my
forked arguments stir up the fire of affection in her! I have
been filing my nose and anviling down my chin this two days,
and yet just now there was scarce room enough for her sweet
lips and mine to meet. She calls me Vulcan and Cyclops, and
says I shall be hanged up for the sign of the _Black Boy_. But
'tis no matter. It may be, when she calls me Vulcan, she would
have me make her my Venus!
DITTY. Who is this trough that he is about to run away with?
BUD. Well, I'll try both ways.
DITTY. How now, Budget? Can you sing your ballad yet? Come, are
you perfect?
BUD. Not yet, Ditty; but is't to the tune o' th' _Bleeding
Heart_, do you say?
DITTY. Ay, ay; but what makes you so pale, Budget? There's
a cup of ale at mine host Welcome's will make your nose of
another colour.
BUD. O Ditty, there is a nail knocked into my heart! It pricks,
it pricks.
GUM. Why, if you can't wrench it out, we'll send for a smith.
DITTY. Has Cupid played the joiner with you, then? Who is't he
has fastened to your heart with that nail? What metal is she
made of, that you cannot hammer her?
BUD. It is the city's beauty!
DITTY. The city's beauty? who's that? One of my lord major's
spaniels?
GUM. I knew a bitch of that name was a very pretty dog, and
would fetch and carry as nimbly as any porter in the town.
BUD. What, villain, do you make a puppy of me! I'll kick you
into glove-dogs, you mongrels, hell-hounds, whelps! [_Kicks
them._
DITTY. Hold, good Budget, a jest is but a jest; I spoke but in
jest.
GUM. Nor I, indeed, Master Budget.
BUD. Then I kicked you but in jest.
GUM. Ay, ay, sir, we take it so; you must think, if it had been
in earnest, though it had been the best man i' th' land, he had
kicked his last.
BUD. Had he so, slave?
GUM. Yes, when he had done kicking.
DIT. Good Budget, be pacified, and we'll recompense the injury
we have done you with our forwardness to promote your desires
and translation out of the circle of love into the wedding-ring.
BUD. Thanks, kind Ditty; walk along with me, and I will show
thee the sweet empress of my heart. I am appeased. [_Exeunt._