_Clerk_ [_reads_]. "I, the said Earl of Brumpton, do give, bestow, grant, and bequeath, over and above the said premises, all the site and capital messuage called by the name of Oatham, and all out-houses, barns, stables, and other edifices and buildings, yards, orchards, gardens, fields, arbours, trees, lands, earths, meadows, greens, pastures, feedings, woods, underwoods, ways, waters, watercourses, fishings, ponds, pools, commons, common of pasture, paths, heath-thickets, profits, commodities and emoluments, with their and every of their appurtenances [PUZZLE _nods and sneers as the synonimous words are repeating, whom_ LORD B. _scornfully mimics_] whatsoever, to the said capital messuage and site belonging, or in any wise appertaining, or with the same heretofore used, occupied or enjoyed, accepted, executed, known, or taken as part, parcel, or member of the same; containing in the whole, by estimation, four hundred acres of the large measure, or thereabouts, be the same more or less; all and singular, which the said site, capital messuage, and other the premises, with their and every of their appurtenances are situate, lying, and being----" _Puz._ Hold, hold, good Tom; you do come on indeed in business, but don't use your nose enough in reading. [_Reads in a ridiculous law-tone until out of breath._] Why, you're quite out--You read to be understood. Let me see it.--"I, the said Earl."--Now again, suppose this were to be in Latin. [_Runs into Latin terminations._] Making Latin is only making it no English--"_Ego predict--Comes de Brumpton--totas meas barnos--outhousas et stabulas--yardos_"--But there needs no further perusal--I now recollect the whole. My lord, by this instrument, disinherits his son utterly, gives all to my lady, and moreover, grants the wards of two fortune-wards to her--_id est_, to be sold by her, which is the subject of my business to her ladyship, who, methinks, a little overdoes the affair of grief, in letting me wait thus long on such welcome articles. But here---- _Enter_ TATTLEAID, _wiping her eyes._ _Tat._ I have in vain done all I can to make her regard me. Pray, Mr. Puzzle--you're a man of sense--come in yourself, and speak reason, to bring her to some consideration of herself, if possible. _Puz._ Tom, I'll come down to the hall to you; dear madam, lead on. [_Ex._ CLERK _one way_, PUZZLE _and_ TATTLEAID _another._ LORD BRUMPTON _and_ TRUSTY _advance from their concealment, after a long pause, and staring at each other._ _Ld. B._ Trusty, on thy sincerity, on thy fidelity to me, thy friend, thy patron, and thy master, answer me directly to one question: am I really alive? Am I that identical, that numerical, that very same Lord Brumpton, that----