Page 701 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

PRINCE

Ned, prithee come out of that fat room and lend me thy hand to laugh a little.

POINS
Where hast been, Hal?

PRINCE
With three or four loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have
sounded the very bass-string [5] of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a

leash of drawers and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick,
and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation that, though I be but
Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no
proud [10] Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy (by
the Lord, so they call me!), and when I am king of England I shall command

all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet; and
when you breathe in your watering, they cry ‘hem!’ and [15] bid you play it
off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I

can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned,
thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action. But,
sweet Ned − to sweeten [20] which name of Ned, I give thee this
pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an under-skinker,
one that never spake other English in his life than ‘Eight shillings and

sixpence’, and ‘You are welcome’, with this shrill addition, ‘Anon, anon, sir!
Score a pint [25] of bastard in the Half-moon’, or so − but, Ned, to drive
away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room

while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar; and do
thou never leave calling ‘Francis!’ that his tale to me may be nothing [30] but
‘Anon!’ Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent.

POINS
Francis!

PRINCE
Thou art perfect.

POINS
Francis!

[Exit Poins.]