Page 1329 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

LEONATO

Faith, niece, you tax Signor Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I
doubt it not.

MESSENGER
He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. [45]

BEATRICE
You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very valiant

trencher-man, he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGER

And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE
And a good soldier to a lady. But what is he to a [50] lord?

MESSENGER
A lord to a lord, a man to a man, stuffed with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICE
It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing − well,
we are all mortal. [55]

LEONATO
You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt

Signor Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit
between them.

BEATRICE
Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went
halting off, and now is the [60] whole man governed with one; so that if he

have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference
between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth he hath left, to be
known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every
month a [65] new sworn brother.