[_Passing Chettle with a smile._] The stranger first, Chettle, then the drink. I’ve not seen Ben for months and months. [_Goes to Jonson and takes both his hands._] BEN JONSON: [_Pushing a chair towards Shakespeare._] And now little poet, what will you drink? Canary or sack. [_Claps his hands._] Here, Drawer! SHAKESPEARE: I’m ill with thirst, and for that disease there’s no medicine like small beer. JONSON: [_To drawer._] Bring beer. CHETTLE: Have sack, Shakespeare, sack’s the drink: when sack goes in, wit comes out. Beer’s cold and thin, fit for young girls, who quake to think of lovers; but sack’s rich and generous, breeds courage and self-content; equals the poor man to kings, and kings to gods. SHAKESPEARE: [_To Jonson._] A little more, and he’d rise into measure. JONSON: Out of measure, you mean; the verse is my part. Curious how abstinence breeds desire, and desire song. Try prison for six months, Will, and your mouth will drip with longing for wine, women and good company. Ah, the leaden hours! CHETTLE: Ho! ho! my lad of the mountain. No prison needed by the godly. Without provocation or incitement I want women often, good company always, wine perpetually. It’s very strange: I’ve often had too much sack, often; but enough, never. Read me that riddle, Shakespeare! SHAKESPEARE: That desire, Chettle, still outlives performance, is no riddle. [_Turning to Jonson._] Your punishment punished all of us, Ben. DEKKER: And all for killing an actor. SELDEN: In fair duello, too: allowed since the Norman time. LACY: [_With gestures._] Was it a punto, Ben, or a reverso, an imbrocato or a montanto that reached the throne of life? DEKKER: [_Half maliciously._] Or did a mere _downright_ passada thrust poor Spencer from the stage? JONSON: [_Menacingly._] ’Twas a cudgel Downright used on Bobadill: don’t forget that, Cobbler! DEKKER: ’Tis as good a trade as bricklaying, and gives more time for thought. MARSTON: Was it a Toledo, Ben, or a _long_ Fleming gave the mortal wound? [_Jonson rises, crying_ “You dog!” _Lord Lacy on one side, and Shakespeare on the other, hold him back, and constrain him to sit._] LACY: Amity, friends, amity! SHAKESPEARE: Every man in his humour, Ben; who should know that better than you? JONSON: [_Sits again, grumbling._] The curs, who bark and run. LACY: Let’s have a hanap, friends, to cool the embers of strife. CHETTLE: One cup of sack, Shakespeare, to chase your melancholy and start your wit. SHAKESPEARE: Not one. Sweet wine on bitter beer would make me Chettle. [_Turns to Jonson._] So you became a Catholic in prison, Ben. Was it the loneliness, or fasting? JONSON: Loneliness, perhaps: in solitude one listens to the heart. MARSTON [_Interrupting._] That’s weak, Jonson, childish-weak. Solitude breeds religion as the dark breeds devils—out of fear. DEKKER: Religion’s a trade to the priest, an intrigue to women, to men a laughing-stock. CHETTLE: