_Diccon._ Slip not your gear, I counsel you, but of this take good heed: Let not be known I told you of it, how well soever ye speed. _Gammer._ Chill in, Diccon, and clean apern to take and set before me; And ich may my nee'le once see, chill, sure, remember thee! THE SECOND ACT. THE FIFTH SCENE. DICCON. _Diccon._ Here will the sport begin; if these two once may meet, Their cheer, durst lay money, will prove scarcely sweet. My gammer, sure, intends to be upon her bones With staves, or with clubs, or else with cobble stones. Dame Chat, on the other side, if she be far behind I am right far deceived; she is given to it of kind. He that may tarry by it awhile, and that but short, I warrant him, trust to it, he shall see all the sport. Into the town will I, my friends to visit there, And hither straight again to see th'end of this gear. In the meantime, fellows, pipe up; your fiddles, I say, take them, And let your friends hear such mirth as ye can make them. THE THIRD ACT. THE FIRST SCENE. HODGE. _Hodge._ Sim Glover, yet gramercy! cham meetly well-sped now, Th'art even as good a fellow as ever kiss'd a cow! Here is a thong indeed, by the mass, though ich speak it; Tom Tankard's great bald curtal, I think, could not break it! And when he spied my need to be so straight and hard, Hase lent me here his nawl, to set the gib forward; As for my gammer's nee'le, the flying fiend go wi' it! Chill not now go to the door again with it to meet. Chould make shift good enough and chad a candle's end; The chief hole in my breech with these two chill amend. THE THIRD ACT. THE SECOND SCENE. GAMMER, HODGE. _Gammer._ Now Hodge, may'st now be glad, cha news to tell thee; Ich know who hase my nee'le; ich trust soon shall it see. _Hodge._ The devil thou does! hast heard, gammer, indeed, or dost but jest? _Gammer._ 'Tis as true as steel, Hodge. _Hodge._ Why, knowest well where didst lese it? _Gammer._ Ich know who found it, and took it up! shalt see ere it be long. _Hodge._ God's mother dear! if that be true, farewell both nawl and thong! But who hase it, gammer, say on; chould fain hear it disclosed. _Gammer._ That false vixen, that same dame Chat, that counts herself so honest. _Hodge._ Who told you so? _Gammer._ That same did Diccon the bedlam, which saw it done. _Hodge._ Diccon? it is a vengeable knave, gammer, 'tis a bonable whoreson, Can do mo things than that, els cham deceived evil: By the mass, ich saw him of late call up a great black devil! O, the knave cried "_ho, ho!_" he roared and he thundered, And ye 'ad been here, cham sure you'ld murrainly ha' wondered. _Gammer._ Was not thou afraid, Hodge, to see him in this place? _Hodge._ No, and chad come to me, chould have laid him on the face, Chould have, promised him!