[_Reads._ "Our duty premised; and we have sent unto your worship sack, Seville oils, pepper, Barbary sugar, and such other commodities as we thought most requisite. We wanted money, therefore we are fain to take up £200 of Master Towerson's man, which by a bill of exchange, sent to him, we would request your worship pay accordingly." You shall command, sir, you shall command, sir. [_Reads again._ "The news here is, that the English ships, the _Fortune_ (your ship), the _Adventure_ and _Good Luck_ of London, coasting along by Italy towards Turkey, were set upon by two Spanish galleys. What became of them, we know not; but doubt much, by reason of the weather's calmness." How is't? six to one, the weather calm? Now, afore God, who would not doubt their safety? A plague upon these Spanish-galley pirates! Roaring Charybdis or devouring Scylla Were[n't] half such terror to the antique world, As these same antic[497] villains now of late Have made the Straits 'twixt Spain and Barbary. TOW. Now, sir, what doth your factor's letters say? PIS. Marry, he saith these witless, luckless dolts Have met, and are beset with Spanish galleys, As they did sail along by Italy! What a bots made the dolts near Italy? Could they not keep the coast of Barbary? Or, having pass'd it, gone for Tripoli, Being on the other side of Sicily, As near as where they were unto the Straits? For by the globe both Tripoli and it Lie from the Straits some twenty-five degrees, And each degree makes threescore English miles. TOW. Very true, sir: but it makes nothing to My bill of exchange. This dealing fits not one Of your account. PIS. And what fits yours? a prating, wrangling tongue, A woman's ceaseless and incessant babbling, That sees the world turn'd topsy-turvy[498] with me. Yet hath not so much wit to stay a while, Till I bemoan my late excessive loss. WAL. 'Swounds! 'tis dinner-time, I'll stay no longer. Hark you a word, sir. PIS. I tell you, sir, it would have made you whine Worse than if shoals of luckless croaking ravens Had seiz'd on you, to feed their famished paunches, Had you heard news of such a ravenous rout, Eeady to seize on half the wealth you have. WAL. 'Sblood! you might have kept at home, and be hang'd. What a pox care I? _Enter a_ POST. POST. God save your worship: a little money, and so forth. PIS. But men are senseless now of others' woe: This stony age is grown so stony-hearted, That none respects their neighbours' miseries. I wish (as poets do) that Saturn's times, The long outworn world, were in use again, That men might sail without impediment.