Page 856 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no [10] one good
quality worthy your lordship’s entertainment.

SECOND LORD
It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his virtue which he hath
not, he might at some great and trusty business in a main danger fail you.

BERTRAM
I would I knew in what particular action to try [15] him.

SECOND LORD
None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so

confidently undertake to do.

FIRST LORD
I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly [20] surprise him; such I will have
whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy. We will bind and hoodwink
him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer

of the adversaries when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship
present at his examination [25] If he do not for the promise of his life, and in
the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the
intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his

soul upon oath, never trust my judgement in anything. [30]

SECOND LORD
O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a
stratagem for’t. When your lordship sees the bottom of his success in’t, and to
what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if you give him not

John Drum’s entertainment your inclining [35] cannot be removed. Here he
comes.

Enter Parolles.

FIRST LORD
O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design; let him fetch
off his drum in any hand.