_Prince._ Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's[2496] sword so hacked? _Peto._ Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you 295 believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like. _Bard._ Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to[2497] make them bleed, and then to beslubber our garments[2498] with it and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before, I blushed to hear his[2499] 300 monstrous devices.[2500] _Prince._ O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since[2501] thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rannest away: what instinct 305 hadst thou for it? _Bard._ My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? _Prince._ I do. _Bard._ What think you they portend? 310 _Prince._ Hot livers and cold purses. _Bard._ Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. _Prince._ No, if rightly taken, halter. _Re-enter_ FALSTAFF.[2502] Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now,[2503] my sweet creature of bombast! How long is't ago, Jack,[2504] 315 since thou sawest thine own knee? _Fal._ My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept[2505] into any alderman's thumb-ring: a plague of sighing and[2506] grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous 320 news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father;[2507] you must to the court in the morning. That same mad[2508] fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amamon the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold and[2509] swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh 325 hook--what a plague call you him? _Poins._ O, Glendower.[2510] _Fal._ Owen, Owen, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer,[2511] and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot[2512] of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill[2513] 330 perpendicular,-- _Prince._ He that rides at high speed and with his[2514] pistol kills a sparrow flying. _Fal._ You have hit it. _Prince._ So did he never the sparrow. 335 _Fal._ Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he[2515] will not run. _Prince._ Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running! _Fal._ O' horseback, ye cuckoo; but afoot he will not[2516] 340 budge a foot. _Prince._ Yes, Jack, upon instinct.