CAR. Faith then I pity the poor fellow, he's fallen into a fool's hands. [ASIDE. SOG. Sirrah, who gave you a commission to lie in my lordship? MAC. Your lordship! SOG. How! my lordship? do you know me, sir? MAC. I do know you, sir. CAR. He answers him like an echo. [ASIDE. SOG. Why, Who am I, sir? MAC. One of those that fortune favours. CAR. The periphrasis of a fool. I'll observe this better. [ASIDE. SOG. That fortune favours! how mean you that, friend? MAC. I mean simply: that you are one that lives not by your wits. SOG. By my wits! no sir, I scorn to live by my wits, I. I have better means, I tell thee, than to take such base courses, as to live by my wits. What, dost thou think I live by my wits? MAC. Methinks, jester, you should not relish this well. CAR. Ha! does he know me? MAC. Though yours be the worst use a man can put his wit to, of thousands, to prostitute it at every tavern and ordinary; yet, methinks, you should have turn'd your broadside at this, and have been ready with an apology, able to sink this hulk of ignorance into the bottom and depth of his contempt. CAR. Oh, 'tis Macilente! Signior, you are well encountered; how is it? O, we must not regard what he says, man, a trout, a shallow fool, he has no more brain than a butterfly, a mere stuft suit; he looks like a musty bottle new wicker'd, his head's the cork, light, light! [ASIDE TO MACILENTE.] -- I am glad to see you so well return'd, signior. MAC. You are! gramercy, good Janus. SOG. Is he one of your acquaintance? I love him the better for that. CAR. Od's precious, come away, man, what do you mean? an you knew him as I do, you'd shun him as you would do the plague. SOG. Why, sir? CAR. O, he's a black fellow, take heed of him. SOG. Is he a scholar, or a soldier? CAR. Both, both; a lean mongrel, he looks as if he were chop-fallen, with barking at other men's good fortunes: 'ware how you offend him; he carries oil and fire in his pen, will scald where it drops: his spirit is like powder, quick, violent; he'll blow a man up with a jest: I fear him worse than a rotten wall does the cannon; shake an hour after at the report. Away, come not near him. SOG. For God's sake let's be gone; an he be a scholar, you know I cannot abide him; I had as lieve see a cockatrice, specially as cockatrices go now. CAR. What, you'll stay, signior? this gentleman Sogliardo, and I, are to visit the knight Puntarvolo, and from thence to the city; we shall meet there. [EXIT WITH SOGLIARDO.