The Alchemist by Ben Jonson (best way to read an ebook txt) 📕

mercy.
I thought the liberties. What shall we do now, Face? Face

Be silent: not a word, if he call or knock.
I’ll into mine old shape again and meet him,
Of Jeremy, the butler. In the meantime,
Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase,
That we can carry in the two trunks. I’ll keep him
Off for today, if I cannot longer: and then
At night, I’ll ship you both away to Ratcliff,
Where we will meet tomorrow, and there we’ll share.
Let Mammon’s brass and pewter keep the cellar;
We’ll have another time for that. But, Dol,
Prithee go heat a little water quickly;
Subtle must shave me: all my Captain’s beard
Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy.
You’ll do it?

Subtle

Yes, I’ll shave you, as well as I can.

Face

And not cut my throat, but trim me?

Subtle

You shall see, sir.

Exeunt. Act V Scene I

Before Lovewit’s door.

Enter Lovewit, with several of the Neighbours. Lovewit

Has there been such resort, say you?

1 Neighbour

Daily, sir.

2 Neighbour

And nightly, too.

3 Neighbour

Ay, some as brave as lords.

4 Neighbour

Ladies and gentlewomen.

5 Neighbour

Citizens’ wives.

1 Neighbour

And knights.

6 Neighbour

In coaches.

2 Neighbour

Yes, and oyster women.

1 Neighbour

Beside other gallants.

3 Neighbour

Sailors’ wives.

4 Neighbour

Tobacco men.

5 Neighbour

Another Pimlico!

Lovewit

What should my knave advance,
To draw this company? He hung out no banners
Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen,
Or a huge lobster with six claws?

6 Neighbour

No, sir.

3 Neighbour

We had gone in then, sir.

Lovewit

He has no gift
Of teaching in the nose that e’er I knew of.
You saw no bills set up that promised cure
Of agues, or the toothache?

2 Neighbour

No such thing, sir!

Lovewit

Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets?

5 Neighbour

Neither, sir.

Lovewit

What device should he bring forth now?
I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment:
’Pray God he have not kept such open house,
That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding!
I left him nothing else. If he have eat them,
A plague o’ the moth, say I! Sure he has got
Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging!
The friar and the nun; or the new motion
Of the knight’s courser covering the parson’s mare;
Or ’t may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt
Upon a table, or some dog to dance.
When saw you him?

1 Neighbour

Who, sir, Jeremy?

2 Neighbour

Jeremy butler?
We saw him not this month.

Lovewit

How!

4 Neighbour

Not these five weeks, sir.

6 Neighbour

These six weeks at the least.

Lovewit

You amaze me, neighbours!

5 Neighbour

Sure, if your worship know not where he is,
He’s slipt away.

6 Neighbour

Pray God, he be not made away.

Lovewit

Ha! It’s no time to question, then.

Knocks at the door. 6 Neighbour

About
Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry,
As I sat up a mending my wife’s stockings.

Lovewit

’Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear
A cry, sayst thou?

6 Neighbour

Yes, sir, like unto a man
That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.

2 Neighbour

I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o’clock
Next morning.

Lovewit

These be miracles, or you make them so!
A man an hour strangled, and could not speak,
And both you heard him cry?

3 Neighbour

Yes, downward, sir.

Lovewit

Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee.
What trade art thou on?

3 Neighbour

A smith, and’t please your worship.

Lovewit

A smith! Then lend me thy help to get this door open.

3 Neighbour

That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools⁠—

Exit. 1 Neighbour

Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.

Lovewit

I will. Knocks again.

Enter Face, in his butler’s livery. Face

What mean you, sir?

1, 2, 4 Neighbour

O, here’s Jeremy!

Face

Good sir, come from the door.

Lovewit

Why, what’s the matter?

Face

Yet farther, you are too near yet.

Lovewit

In the name of wonder,
What means the fellow!

Face

The house, sir, has been visited.

Lovewit

What, with the plague? Stand thou then farther.

Face

No, sir,
I had it not.

Lovewit

Who had it then? I left
None else but thee in the house.

Face

Yes, sir, my fellow,
The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her
A week before I spied it; but I got her
Conveyed away in the night: and so I shut
The house up for a month⁠—

Lovewit

How!

Face

Purposing then, sir,
To have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar,
And have made it sweet, that you should ne’er have known it;
Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir.

Lovewit

Breathe less, and farther off! Why this is stranger:
The neighbours tell me all here that the doors
Have still been open⁠—

Face

How, sir!

Lovewit

Gallants, men and women,
And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here
In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden,
In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright.

Face

Sir,
Their wisdoms will not say so.

Lovewit

Today they speak
Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood
Went in, they tell me; and another was seen
In a velvet gown at the window: diverse more
Pass in and out.

Face

They did pass through the doors then,
Or walls, I assure their eyesights, and their spectacles;
For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been,
In this my pocket, now above twenty days:
And for before, I kept the fort alone there.
But that ’tis yet not deep in the afternoon,
I should believe my neighbours had seen double
Through the black pot, and made these apparitions!
For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks
And upwards the door has not been opened.

Lovewit

Strange!

1 Neighbour

Good faith, I think I saw a coach.

2 Neighbour

And I too,
I’d have been sworn.

Lovewit

Do you but think it now?
And but one coach?

4 Neighbour

We cannot tell, sir: Jeremy
Is a very honest fellow.

Face

Did you see me at all?

1 Neighbour

No; that we are sure on.

2 Neighbour

I’ll be sworn o’ that.

Lovewit

Fine rogues to