BOB. Marry, thus, I would select nineteen more to myself,
throughout the land, gentlemen they should be of good spirit;
strong and able constitution, I would choose them by an
instinct, a trick that I have, and I would teach these
nineteen the special tricks, as your punto, your reverso,
your stoccato, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto,
till they could all play very near or altogether as well as
myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong:
we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or
thereabouts, and would challenge twenty of the enemy; they
could not in their honour refuse the combat: well, we would
kill them: challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more,
kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill
every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score; twenty
score, that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a
thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty,
two hundred days kills them all, by computation, and this
will I venture my life to perform: provided there be no
treason practised upon us.
LOR. JU. Why, are you so sure of your hand at all times?
BOB. Tut, never mistrust, upon my soul.
LOR. JU. Mass, I would not stand in Signior Giuliano's state,
then, an you meet him, for the wealth of Florence.
BOB. Why Signior, by Jesu, if he were here now, I would not
draw my weapon on him, let this gentleman do his mind, but I
will bastinado him (by heaven) an ever I meet him.
[ENTER GIULIANO AND GOES OUT AGAIN.]
MAT. Faith, and I'll have a fling at him.
LOR. JU. Look, yonder he goes, I think.
GIU. 'Sblood, what luck have I, I cannot meet with these
bragging rascals.
BOB. It's not he: is it?
LOR. JU. Yes, faith, it is he.
MAT. I'll be hang'd then if that were he.
LOR. JU. Before God, it was he: you make me swear.
STEP. Upon my salvation, it was he.
BOB. Well, had I thought it had been he, he could not have
gone so, but I cannot be induced to believe it was he yet.
[ENTER GIU.]
GIU. Oh, gallant, have I found you? draw to your tools;
draw, or by God's will I'll thrash you.
BOB. Signior, hear me.
GIU. Draw your weapons then.
BOB. Signior, I never thought it till now: body of St.
George, I have a warrant of the peace served on me even
now, as I came along, by a water-bearer, this gentleman
saw it, Signior Matheo.
GIU. The peace! 'Sblood, you will not draw?
[MATHEO RUNS AWAY. HE BEATS HIM AND DISARMS HIM.]
LOR. JU. Hold, Signior, hold, under thy favour forbear.
GIU. Prate again as you like this, you whoreson cowardly
rascal, you'll control the point, you? your consort he is
gone; had he staid he had shared with you, in faith.
[EXIT GIULIANO.]
BOB. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the
peace, by Jesu.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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