VAL. What, is my bad genius here again! Oh no, ’tis the lawyer with an itching palm; and he’s come to be scratched. My nails are not long enough. Let me have a pair of red-hot tongs quickly, quickly, and you shall see me act St. Dunstan, and lead the devil by the nose. BUCK. O Lord, let me begone: I’ll not venture myself with a madman. SCENE X. SIR SAMPSON, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, JEREMY. VAL. Ha, ha, ha; you need not run so fast, honesty will not overtake you. Ha, ha, ha, the rogue found me out to be _in forma pauperis_ presently. SIR SAMP. Oons! What a vexation is here! I know not what to do, or say, nor which way to go. VAL. Who’s that that’s out of his way? I am Truth, and can set him right. Harkee, friend, the straight road is the worst way you can go. He that follows his nose always, will very often be led into a stink. _Probatum est_. But what are you for? religion or politics? There’s a couple of topics for you, no more like one another than oil and vinegar; and yet those two, beaten together by a state-cook, make sauce for the whole nation. SIR SAMP. What the devil had I to do, ever to beget sons? Why did I ever marry? VAL. Because thou wert a monster, old boy! The two greatest monsters in the world are a man and a woman! What’s thy opinion? SIR SAMP. Why, my opinion is, that those two monsters joined together, make yet a greater, that’s a man and his wife. VAL. Aha! Old True-penny, say’st thou so? Thou hast nicked it. But it’s wonderful strange, Jeremy. JERE. What is, sir? VAL. That gray hairs should cover a green head—and I make a fool of my father. What’s here! _Erra Pater_: or a bearded sibyl? If Prophecy comes, Truth must give place. SCENE XI. SIR SAMPSON, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MISS FORESIGHT, MRS. FRAIL. FORE. What says he? What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us! How are we? SIR SAMP. Are we? A pox o’ your prognostication. Why, we are fools as we use to be. Oons, that you could not foresee that the moon would predominate, and my son be mad. Where’s your oppositions, your trines, and your quadrates? What did your Cardan and your Ptolemy tell you? Your Messahalah and your Longomontanus, your harmony of chiromancy with astrology. Ah! pox on’t, that I that know the world and men and manners, that don’t believe a syllable in the sky and stars, and sun and almanacs and trash, should be directed by a dreamer, an omen-hunter, and defer business in expectation of a lucky hour, when, body o’ me, there never was a lucky hour after the first opportunity. SCENE XII. SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MRS. FORESIGHT, MRS. FRAIL. FORE. Ah, Sir Sampson, heav’n help your head. This is none of your lucky hour; _Nemo omnibus horis sapit_. What, is he gone, and in contempt of science? Ill stars and unconvertible ignorance attend him.