_Foss._ Let him come in. One of my retale Indian merchants, I suppose, that always brings me some odd thing. Enter sailor with a child. What hast thou brought me, friend, a young drill? _Sail._ Look ye d'ye see, master, you know best whether a monkey begot him. _Foss._ A meer human child. _Town._ Thy carelessness, Sarsnet, has exposed me, I am lost and ruin'd. O heav'n! heav'n! No, impudence assist me. [_Aside._ _Foss._ Is the child monstrous? or dost thou bring him here to take physick? _Sail._ I care not what he takes so you take him. _Foss._ What does the fellow mean? _Sail._ Fellow me no fellows. My name is Jack Capstone of Deptford, and are not you the man that has the raree-show of oyster-shells and pebble-stones? _Fos._ What if I am? _Sail._ Why, then my invoice is right, I must leave my cargo here. _Town._ Miserable woman that I am! how shall I support this fight! thy bastard brought into thy family as soon as thy bride! _Fos._ Patience, patience, I beseech you. Indeed I have no posterity. _Town._ You lascivious brute you. _Fos._ Passion is but the tempestuous cloud that obscures reason; be calm and I'll convince you. Friend, how come you to bring the infant hither? _Sail._ My wife, poor woman, could give him suck no longer, for she died yesterday morning. There's a long account, master. It was hard to trace him to the fountain-head. I steer'd my course from lane to lane, I spoke to twenty old women, and at last was directed to a ribbon-shop in Covent-Garden, and they sent me hither, and so take the bantling and pay me his clearings. [_Offers him the child._ _Fos._ I shall find law for you, sirrah. Call my neighbour Possum, he is a justice of peace, as well as a physician. _Town._ Call the man back. If you have committed one folly, don't expose yourself by a second. _Sail._ The gentlewoman says well. Come, master, we all know that there is no boarding a pretty wench, without charges one way or other; you are a doctor, master, and have no surgeons bills to pay; and so can the better afford it. _Town._ Rather than you should bring a scandal on your character, I will submit to be a kind mother-in-law. Enter Justice Possum, and Clerk. _Fos._ Mr. justice Possum, for now I must so call you, not brother Possum; here is a troublesome fellow with a child, which he would leave in my house. _Pos._ Another man's child? he cannot in law. _Fos._ It seemeth to me to be a child unlawfully begotten. _Pos._ A bastard! who does he lay it to? _Fos._ To our family. _Pos._ Your family, _quatenus_ a family, being a body collective, cannot get a bastard. Is this child a bastard, honest friend? _Sail._ I was neither by when his mother was show'd, nor when she was unladen; whether he belong to a fair trader, or be run goods, I cannot tell: In short here I was sent, and here I will leave him. _Pos._ Dost then know his mother, friend? _Sail._ I am no midwife, master; I did not see him born.