Act 2, Scene I - Page 2

know not well what they
are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure
of; and void of all profanation in the world that
good Christians ought to have.

ESCALUS
This comes off well; here's a wise officer.

ANGELO
Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your
name? why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

POMPEY
He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.

ANGELO
What are you, sir?

ELBOW
He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that
serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they
say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she
professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too.

ESCALUS
How know you that?

ELBOW
My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,--

ESCALUS
How? thy wife?

ELBOW
Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,--

ESCALUS
Dost thou detest her therefore?

ELBOW
I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as
she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house,
it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

ESCALUS
How dost thou know that, constable?

ELBOW
Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman
cardinally given, might have been accused in
fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

ESCALUS
By the woman's means?

ELBOW
Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she
spit in his face, so she defied him.

POMPEY
Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

ELBOW
Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable
man; prove it.

ESCALUS
Do you hear how he misplaces?

POMPEY
Sir, she came in great with child; and longing,
saving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes;
sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very
distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a
dish of some three-pence; your honours have seen
such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very
good dishes,--

ESCALUS
Go to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.

POMPEY
No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in
the right: but to the point. As I say, this
Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and
being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for
prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,
Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the
rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very
honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could
not give you three-pence again.

FROTH
No, indeed.

POMPEY
Very well: you being then, if you be remembered,
cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,--

FROTH
Ay, so I did indeed.

POMPEY