Band. A scurvy shig-shag gentleman, new come out of the North; a puisne, a very freshman, come up hither to learn fashions; and seek to expel me?

Cuff. Nay, if you be so broad with him, Band; we shall have a fray presently.

Ruff. Sir, I'll pull down your collar for you (He jostles B. and C. stays him.)

Cuff. It was time for me to stay you: for I am sure you were a falling Band.

Ruff. Well, Band, for all you are so stiff, I'll make you limber enough before I leave you.

Band. No, hog-yonker, its more than thou canst do.

Cuff. O let me come to him. Well, Band, let me catch you in another place, and I'll make cutwork of you.

Band. Cut-work of me! No, there's ne'er a Spanish Ruff of you all can do it.

Cuff. S'foot, if these two should go together by the ears, Cuff would be in a fine plight; would he not?

Ruff. Well, Band, thou hadst need look to thyself: for if I meet thee, I will lace thee

roundly.

Band. Lace me? Thou wouldst be laced thyself; for this is the very truth, Ruff, thou art but a plain knave.

Cuff. If they talk of lacing, I were best look about myself.

Ruff. Darest thou meet me in the field?

Band. In the field? Why thou art but an effeminate fellow, Ruff, for all thou art so well set. But at what weapon ?

Ruff. Nay, I will give thee that advantage. Bring thou what weapons thou wilt. I scorn to make anything of thee, Band, but needle-work.

Band. S'foot, thou shalt know, a gentleman and a soldier scorns thy proffer.

Ruff. A soldier.

Cuff. Did you not hear of the great Bands went over of late?

Ruff. Where didst thou serve? in the Low Countries?

Cuff. It may be so: for he is a Holland Band.

Band. Where served, it is no matter; but I am sure I have been often pressed.

Cuff. Truly, his laundress will witness thereof. Ruff. Press me no pressings: for I'll make you know that Ruff is steeled to the back. If I had my

stick here, you should feel it.

Band. Nay, bragger, it is not you great words can carry it away so. Give Band but a hem, and he will be for you at any time. Name, therefore, the place, the day, and the hour of our meeting.

Ruff. The place, the papermills: where I will tear thee into rags, before I have done with thee: the time, to-morrow about one. But do you hear? We will fight single: you shall not be double, Band.

Cuff. Now I perceive the Spaniard and the Hollander will to it roundly.

Ruff. But do you hear? Once more, do not say at our next meeting you forgot the time.

Cuff. No: I dare warrant you, there is no man more careful of the time than Band is: for I am sure he hath always a dozen clocks' about him. Ruff. Farewell then.

Band. Then farewell.

If

Cuff. Nay, you shall not part so. You two will go into the fields to fight, and know not what fighting means. A couple of white-livered fellows! the laundress will make you both look as white as a clout, if she list. you lack beating, she'll beat you I'll warrant you. She'll so clap your sides together, that she'll beat you all to pieces, in once or twice handling. Why, I have known her leave her marks behind her a whole week together. She'll quickly beat you black and blue; for I am sure she'll scarce wash while before she starch.

Ruf

now

Band. Well, remember the time and place,

CLOCK. -A kind of ornamental work worn of various parts of dress, led ecclu ively to that on each side of a stocking.-Clock-work.

Cuff. Remember yourself, and Mistress Stitchwell; one that you have been both beholden to in your days.

not.

Band. Who? Mistress Stitchwell. I know her

Cuff. Nor thou neither.

Ruff. No:-I swear by all the gum and blue starch in Christendom.

Cuff. I thought so. Why its the sempster. One, that both you had been undone, had it not been for her. But what talk I of your undoing? I say Mistress Stitchwell, the sempstress, was the very maker of you: yet you regard her thus little.

it is the common fashion of you all.

But When you

come to be so great as you are, you forget from what

house you came.

Ruff. S'foot! Ruff careth not a pin for her.

Band. Nor Band a button.

Cuff. Well, well Band and Ruff, you had best take heed of her, you know she set you both in the stocks once before; and if she catch you again, it is a hundred to one, if she hang you not both up; for she hath got strings already.

Ruff. Well, meet me if thou darst.

Band. The place, the paper-mills, the hour, to

morrow at one.

you

Cuff. If you go, go. But look well about you, do

hear me? As little a fellow as I am, I will come

and cuff you both out of the field. Cuff is no man of his hands.

If I do not, say

Ruff. Alas! poor shrimp, thou art nothing in my hands.

Cuff. If you go, you shall never say Cuff came of a sleeveless errand. I'll bind your hands, I warrant you, for striking.

Band. Say, and hold, Ruff, remember the paper-mills.

Cuff. And if ye be so choleric, I'll even pin you both in, as soon as I come home. Can you not decide the quarrel between yourselves, without a field? I thought, Ruff, you had been a little more mild, Ruff. You were a horrible puritan the other day, a very precise Ruff.

I

Ruff. Hang him, base rascal! Would he not make any man mad, to see such a poor snake? durst not scarce peep out of doors, before Collar came to town, and now to swagger thus.

Cuff. Come, you shall be friends, Band.

Band. Friends with him? such a base rascal as he is! a thread-bare fellow as he is! I scorn, but my man Collar should go better every day in the week than he, and be friends with him.

Ruff. Thy man, Collar? Thy master, thou would'st have said. I am sure he is thy upholder. Cuff. Nay, surely, he is his master; at least his For Bands make rags, rags make paper,

maker.