_2nd Sear._ O, villain! See how he hath gotten victuals--bread, beef and beer, where the king commanded upon pain of death none should eat for so many days, not the sucking infant. _Adam._ Alas! Sir, this is nothing but a _modicum non nocet ut medicus daret_; why, Sir, a bit to comfort my stomach. _1st Sear._ Villain! thou shalt be hanged for it. _Adam._ These are your words, I shall be hanged for it; but first answer me this question, how many days have we to fast still? _2nd Sear._ Five days. _Adam._ Five days! a long time; then I must be hanged. _1st Sear._ Ay, marry must thou. _Adam._ I am your man, I am for you, Sir, for I had rather be hanged than abide so long a fast. What! five days! Come, I'll untruss. Is your halter, and the gallows, the ladder, and all such furniture in readiness. _1st Sear._ I warrant thee thou shalt want none of these. _Adam._ But hear you, must I be hanged? _1st Sear._ Ay, marry. _Adam._ And for eating of meat. Then, friends, know ye by these presents, I will eat up all my meat, and drink up all my drink, for it shall never be said, I was hanged with an empty stomach. It has been supposed that Greene was very indelicate in his language, as well as reckless in his life. But we cannot find in his plays anything very offensive, considering the date at which he wrote, and in the tract called "Greene's Funeralls," we read:-- His gadding Muse, although it ran of love, Yet did he sweetly morralize his song; Ne ever gaue the looser cause to laugh Ne men of judgement for to be offended. Greene died in "most woefull and rascall estate" at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate. He had previously written his "Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance;" in which he warns his former companions and "gentlemen who spend their wits in making playes," to take warning by his fate. He could get none of his friends to visit him at the last but Mistress Appleby, and the mother of "his base sonne Infortunatus Greene." He gave the following note for his wife--whom he had not seen for six years--to the shoemaker: "Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth, and by my soule's rest, that thow wilte see this man paide; for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the streetes. "ROBERT GREENE." Gabriel Harvey writes, "My next businesse was to inquire after the famous author who was reported to lye dangerously sicke in a shop neere Dowgate, not of plague, but of a surfett of pickle herringe and rennish wine."