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[{"category": "twain", "text": "About half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to ring, and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon. The Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and occupied pews with their parents, so as to be under supervision. Aunt Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with her -- Tom being placed next the aisle, in order that he might be as far away from the open window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible. The crowd filed up the aisles: the aged and needy postmaster, who had seen better days; the mayor and his wife -- for they had a mayor there, among other unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the widow Douglass, fair, smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted soul and well-to-do, her hill mansion the only palace in the town, and the most hospitable and much the most lavish in the matter of festivities that St. Petersburg could boast; the bent and venerable Major and Mrs. Ward; lawyer Riverson, the new notable from a distance; next the belle of the village, followed by a troop of lawn-clad and ribbon-decked young heart-breakers; then all the young clerks in town in a body -- for they had stood in the vestibule sucking their cane-heads, a circling wall of oiled and simpering admirers, till the last girl had run their gantlet; and last of all came the Model Boy, Willie Mufferson, taking as heedful care of his mother as if she were cut glass. He always brought his mother to church, and was the pride of all the matrons. The boys all hated him, he was so good. And besides, he had been \"thrown up to them\" so much. His white handkerchief was hanging out of his pocket behind, as usual on Sundays -- accidentally. Tom had no handkerchief, and he looked upon boys who had as snobs.\n\nThe congregation being fully assembled, now, the bell rang once more, to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a solemn hush fell upon the church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country.\n\nThe minister gave out the hymn, and read it through with a relish, in a peculiar style which was much admired in that part of the country. His voice began on a medium key and climbed steadily up till it reached a certain point, where it bore with strong emphasis upon the topmost word and then plunged down as if from a spring-board:\n\n Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on flow'ry beds\n of ease,\n Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' bloody seas?\n\nHe was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church \"sociables\" he was always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps, and \"wall\" their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, \"Words cannot express it; it is too beautiful, too beautiful for this mortal earth.\" After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin-board, and read off \"notices\" of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom -- a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.\n\nAnd now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen.\n\nThere was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it -- if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously -- for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman's regular route over it -- and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together, embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's hands itched to grab for it they did not dare -- he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. But with the closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal forward; and the instant the \"Amen\" was out the fly was a prisoner of war. His aunt detected the act and made him let it go.\n\nThe minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod -- and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything else about the discourse. However, this time he was really interested for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving picture of the assembling together of the world's hosts at the millennium when the lion and the lamb should lie down together and a little child should lead them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of the great spectacle were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the conspicuousness of the principal character before the on-looking nations; his face lit with the thought, and he said to himself that he wished he could be that child, if it was a tame lion.\n\nNow he lapsed into suffering again, as the dry argument was resumed. Presently he bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was a large black beetle with formidable jaws -- a \"pinchbug,\" he called it. It was in a percussion-cap box. The first thing the beetle did was to take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was safe out of his reach. Other people uninterested in the sermon found relief in the beetle, and they eyed it too. Presently a vagrant poodle dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change. He spied the beetle; the drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again; grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another; began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to his stomach with the beetle between his paws, and continued his experiments; grew weary at last, and then indifferent and absent-minded. His head nodded, and little by little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a couple of yards away, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked foolish, and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart, too, and a craving for revenge. So he went to the beetle and began a wary attack on it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle, lighting with his fore-paws within an inch of the creature, making even closer snatches at it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his ears flapped again. But he grew tired once more, after a while; tried to amuse himself with a fly but found no relief; followed an ant around, with his nose close to the floor, and quickly wearied of that; yawned, sighed, forgot the beetle entirely, and sat down on it. Then there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle went sailing up the aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the dog; he crossed the house in front of the altar; he flew down the other aisle; he crossed before the doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his anguish grew with his progress, till presently he was but a woolly comet moving in its orbit with the gleam and the speed of light. At last the frantic sufferer sheered from its course, and sprang into its master's lap; he flung it out of the window, and the voice of distress quickly thinned away and died in the distance.\n\nBy this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come to a dead standstill. The discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor parson had said a rarely facetious thing. It was a genuine relief to the whole congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction pronounced.\n\nTom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of variety in it. He had but one marring thought; he was willing that the dog should play with his pinchbug, but he did not think it was upright in him to carry it off. \n"}, {"category": "twain", "text": "Monday morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always found him so -- because it began another week's slow suffering in school. He generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening holiday, it made the going into captivity and fetters again so much more odious.\n\n\nTom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was sick; then he could stay home from school. Here was a vague possibility. He canvassed his system. No ailment was found, and he investigated again. This time he thought he could detect colicky symptoms, and he began to encourage them with considerable hope. But they soon grew feeble, and presently died wholly away. He reflected further. Suddenly he discovered something. One of his upper front teeth was loose. This was lucky; he was about to begin to groan, as a \"starter,\" as he called it, when it occurred to him that if he came into court with that argument, his aunt would pull it out, and that would hurt. So he thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for the present, and seek further. Nothing offered for some little time, and then he remembered hearing the doctor tell about a certain thing that laid up a patient for two or three weeks and threatened to make him lose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under the sheet and held it up for inspection. But now he did not know the necessary symptoms. However, it seemed well worth while to chance it, so he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.\n\nBut Sid slept on unconscious.\n\nTom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe.\n\nNo result from Sid.\n\nTom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest and then swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.\n\nSid snored on.\n\nTom was aggravated. He said, \"Sid, Sid!\" and shook him. This course worked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, then brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at Tom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:\n\n\"Tom! Say, Tom!\" [No response.] \"Here, Tom! Tom! What is the matter, Tom?\" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously.\n\nTom moaned out:\n\n\"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me.\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie.\"\n\n\"No -- never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody.\"\n\n\"But I must! Don't groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been this way?\"\n\n\"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me.\"\n\n\"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner ? Oh, Tom, Don't! It makes my flesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?\"\n\n\"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever done to me. When I'm gone --\"\n\n\"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom -- oh, don't. Maybe --\"\n\n\"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, you give my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's come to town, and tell her --\"\n\nBut Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering in reality, now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.\n\nSid flew down-stairs and said:\n\n\"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!\"\n\n\"Dying!\"\n\n\"Yes'm. Don't wait -- come quick!\"\n\n\"Rubbage! I don't believe it!\"\n\nBut she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels. And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reached the bedside she gasped out:\n\n\"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?\"\n\n\"Oh, auntie, I'm --\"\n\n\"What's the matter with you -- what is the matter with you, child?\"\n\n\"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!\"\n\nThe old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a little, then did both together. This restored her and she said:\n\n\"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense and climb out of this.\"\n\nThe groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt a little foolish, and he said:\n\n\"Aunt Polly, it seemed mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my tooth at all.\"\n\n\"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?\"\n\n\"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful.\"\n\n\"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth. Well -- your tooth is loose, but you're not going to die about that. Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen.\"\n\nTom said:\n\n\"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay home from school.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your outrageousness.\" By this time the dental instruments were ready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth with a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.\n\nBut all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and admirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the exhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, \"Sour grapes!\" and he wandered away a dismantled hero.\n\nShortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad -- and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance. Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.\n\nHuckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.\n\nTom hailed the romantic outcast:\n\n\"Hello, Huckleberry!\"\n\n\"Hello yourself, and see how you like it.\"\n\n\"What's that you got?\"\n\n\"Dead cat.\"\n\n\"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him ?\"\n\n\"Bought him off'n a boy.\"\n\n\"What did you give?\"\n\n\"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house.\"\n\n\"Where'd you get the blue ticket?\"\n\n\"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick.\"\n\n\"Say -- what is dead cats good for, Huck?\"\n\n\"Good for? Cure warts with.\"\n\n\"No! Is that so? I know something that's better.\"\n\n\"I bet you don't. What is it?\"\n\n\"Why, spunk-water.\"\n\n\"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?\"\n\n\"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did.\"\n\n\"Who told you so!\"\n\n\"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and the nigger told me. There now!\"\n\n\"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. I don't know him. But I never see a nigger that wouldn't lie. Shucks! Now you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck.\"\n\n\"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the rain-water was.\"\n\n\"In the daytime?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"With his face to the stump?\"\n\n\"Yes. Least I reckon so.\"\n\n\"Did he say anything?\"\n\n\"I don't reckon he did. I don't know.\"\n\n\"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say:\n\n 'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,\n Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts,'\n\nand then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody. Because if you speak the charm's busted.\"\n\n\"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that ain't the way Bob Tanner done.\"\n\n\"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's the wartiest boy in this town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd knowed how to work spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts off of my hands that way, Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've always got considerable many warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a bean.\"\n\n\"Yes, bean's good. I've done that.\"\n\n\"Have you? What's your way?\"\n\n\"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and dig a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece that's got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the wart, and pretty soon off she comes.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's it, Huck -- that's it; though when you're burying it if you say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better. That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and most everywheres. But say -- how do you cure 'em with dead cats?\"\n\n\"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard 'long about midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it's midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see 'em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear 'em talk; and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm done with ye!' That'll fetch any wart.\"\n\n\"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?\"\n\n\"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me.\"\n\n\"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say she's a witch.\"\n\n\"Say! Why, Tom, I know she is. She witched pap. Pap says so his own self. He come along one day, and he see she was a-witching him, so he took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her. Well, that very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he was a layin drunk, and broke his arm.\"\n\n\"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was a-witching him?\"\n\n\"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz when they mumble they're saying the Lord's Prayer backards.\"\n\n\"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the cat?\"\n\n\"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams to-night.\"\n\n\"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get him Saturday night?\"\n\n\"Why, how you talk! How could their charms work till midnight? -- and then it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't reckon.\"\n\n\"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go with you?\"\n\n\"Of course -- if you ain't afeard.\"\n\n\"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?\"\n\n\"Yes -- and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says 'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window -- but don't you tell.\"\n\n\"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me, but I'll meow this time. Say -- what's that?\"\n\n\"Nothing but a tick.\"\n\n\"Where'd you get him?\"\n\n\"Out in the woods.\"\n\n\"What'll you take for him?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I don't want to sell him.\"\n\n\"All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway.\"\n\n\"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them. I'm satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me.\"\n\n\"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of 'em if I wanted to.\"\n\n\"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year.\"\n\n\"Say, Huck -- I'll give you my tooth for him.\"\n\n\"Less see it.\"\n\nTom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:\n\n\"Is it genuwyne?\"\n\nTom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.\n\n\"Well, all right,\" said Huckleberry, \"it's a trade.\"\n\nTom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.\n\nWhen Tom reached the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in briskly, with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed. He hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with business-like alacrity. The master, throned on high in his great splint-bottom arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study. The interruption roused him.\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer!\"\n\nTom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble.\n\n\"Sir!\"\n\n\"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?\"\n\nTom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love; and by that form was the only vacant place on the girls' side of the school-house. He instantly said:\n\n\"I stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn!\"\n\nThe master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his mind. The master said:\n\n\"You -- you did what?\"\n\n\"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\nThere was no mistaking the words.\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever listened to. No mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your jacket.\"\n\nThe master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of switches notably diminished. Then the order followed:\n\n\"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you.\"\n\nThe titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl hitched herself away from him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks and whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon the long, low desk before him, and seemed to study his book.\n\nBy and by attention ceased from him, and the accustomed school murmur rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal furtive glances at the girl. She observed it, \"made a mouth\" at him and gave him the back of her head for the space of a minute. When she cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her. She thrust it away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it away again, but with less animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its place. Then she let it remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, \"Please take it -- I got more.\" The girl glanced at the words, but made no sign. Now the boy began to draw something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand. For a time the girl refused to notice; but her human curiosity presently began to manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs. The boy worked on, apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of noncommittal attempt to see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last she gave in and hesitatingly whispered:\n\n\"Let me see it.\"\n\nTom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable ends to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the girl's interest began to fasten itself upon the work and she forgot everything else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then whispered:\n\n\"It's nice -- make a man.\"\n\nThe artist erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick. He could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not hypercritical; she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered:\n\n\"It's a beautiful man -- now make me coming along.\"\n\nTom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:\n\n\"It's ever so nice -- I wish I could draw.\"\n\n\"It's easy,\" whispered Tom, \"I'll learn you.\"\n\n\"Oh, will you? When?\"\n\n\"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?\"\n\n\"I'll stay if you will.\"\n\n\"Good -- that's a whack. What's your name?\"\n\n\"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer.\"\n\n\"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me Tom, will you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nNow Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom said:\n\n\"Oh, it ain't anything.\"\n\n\"Yes it is.\"\n\n\"No it ain't. You don't want to see.\"\n\n\"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me.\"\n\n\"You'll tell.\"\n\n\"No I won't -- deed and deed and double deed won't.\"\n\n\"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?\"\n\n\"No, I won't ever tell anybody. Now let me.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't want to see!\"\n\n\"Now that you treat me so, I will see.\" And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed: \"I love You.\"\n\n\"Oh, you bad thing!\" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and looked pleased, nevertheless.\n\nJust at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that vise he was borne across the house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word. But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.\n\nAs the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and got \"turned down,\" by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months. \n"}, {"category": "twain", "text": "Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.\n\nTom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour -- and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:\n\n\"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some.\"\n\nJim shook his head and said:\n\n\"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to my own business -- she 'lowed she'd 'tend to de whitewashin'.\"\n\n\"Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket -- I won't be gone only a minute. She won't ever know.\"\n\n\"Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. 'Deed she would.\"\n\n\"She! She never licks anybody -- whacks 'em over the head with her thimble -- and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but talk don't hurt -- anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!\"\n\nJim began to waver.\n\n\"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw.\"\n\n\"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's powerful 'fraid ole missis --\"\n\n\"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe.\"\n\nJim was only human -- this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.\n\nBut Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work -- the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it -- bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.\n\nHe took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently -- the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump -- proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance -- for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:\n\n\"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!\" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.\n\n\"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!\" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.\n\n\"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!\" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles -- for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.\n\n\"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!\" The left hand began to describe circles.\n\n\"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! Lively now! Come -- out with your spring-line -- what're you about there! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now -- let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! Sh't! S'h't! Sh't!\" (trying the gauge-cocks).\n\nTom went on whitewashing -- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: \"Hi-yi! You're up a stump, ain't you!\"\n\nNo answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:\n\n\"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?\"\n\nTom wheeled suddenly and said:\n\n\"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing.\"\n\n\"Say -- I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd druther work -- wouldn't you? Course you would!\"\n\nTom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:\n\n\"What do you call work?\"\n\n\"Why, ain't that work?\"\n\nTom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:\n\n\"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.\"\n\n\"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you like it?\"\n\nThe brush continued to move.\n\n\"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?\"\n\nThat put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth -- stepped back to note the effect -- added a touch here and there -- criticised the effect again -- Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:\n\n\"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.\"\n\nTom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:\n\n\"No -- no -- I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence -- right here on the street, you know -- but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done.\"\n\n\"No -- is that so? Oh come, now -- lemme just try. Only just a little -- I'd let you, if you was me, Tom.\"\n\n\"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly -- well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it --\"\n\n\"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say -- I'll give you the core of my apple.\"\n\n\"Well, here -- No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard --\"\n\n\"I'll give you all of it!\"\n\nTom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with -- and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog-collar -- but no dog -- the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.\n\nHe had had a nice, good, idle time all the while -- plenty of company -- and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.\n\nTom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.\n\nThe boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report. \n"}, {"category": "twain", "text": "\"Tom!\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!\"\n\nNo answer.\n\nThe old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for \"style,\" not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:\n\n\"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll --\"\n\nShe did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.\n\n\"I never did see the beat of that boy!\"\n\nShe went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and \"jimpson\" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:\n\n\"Y-o-u-u Tom!\"\n\nThere was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.\n\n\"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that?\"\n\n\"I don't know, aunt.\"\n\n\"Well, I know. It's jam -- that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch.\"\n\nThe switch hovered in the air -- the peril was desperate --\n\n\"My! Look behind you, aunt!\"\n\nThe old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.\n\nHis aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.\n\n\"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spoil the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening [*], and I'll just be obliged to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child.\"\n\nTom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood and split the kindlings before supper -- at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.\n\nWhile Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep -- for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she:\n\n\"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"Powerful warm, warn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?\"\n\nA bit of a scare shot through Tom -- a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:\n\n\"No'm -- well, not very much.\"\n\nThe old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:\n\n\"But you ain't too warm now, though.\" And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:\n\n\"Some of us pumped on our heads -- mine's damp yet. See?\"\n\nAunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration:\n\n\"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!\"\n\nThe trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.\n\n\"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is -- better'n you look. This time.\"\n\nShe was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.\n\nBut Sidney said:\n\n\"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black.\"\n\n\"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!\"\n\nBut Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:\n\n\"Siddy, I'll lick you for that.\"\n\nIn a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them -- one needle carried white thread and the other black. He said:\n\n\"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other -- I can't keep the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!\"\n\nHe was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though -- and loathed him.\n\nWithin two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time -- just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music -- the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet -- no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.\n\nThe summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before him -- a boy a shade larger than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well dressed, too -- well dressed on a week-day. This was simply astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his closebuttoned blue cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on -- and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved -- but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said:\n\n\"I can lick you!\"\n\n\"I'd like to see you try it.\"\n\n\"Well, I can do it.\"\n\n\"No you can't, either.\"\n\n\"Yes I can.\"\n\n\"No you can't.\"\n\n\"I can.\"\n\n\"You can't.\"\n\n\"Can!\"\n\n\"Can't!\"\n\nAn uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\n\"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe.\"\n\n\"Well I 'low I'll make it my business.\"\n\n\"Well why don't you?\"\n\n\"If you say much, I will.\"\n\n\"Much -- much -- much. There now.\"\n\n\"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, don't you? I could lick you with one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to.\"\n\n\"Well why don't you do it? You say you can do it.\"\n\n\"Well I will, if you fool with me.\"\n\n\"Oh yes -- I've seen whole families in the same fix.\"\n\n\"Smarty! You think you're some, now, don't you? Oh, what a hat!\"\n\n\"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it off -- and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs.\"\n\n\"You're a liar!\"\n\n\"You're another.\"\n\n\"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up.\"\n\n\"Aw -- take a walk!\"\n\n\"Say -- if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock off'n your head.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course you will.\"\n\n\"Well I will.\"\n\n\"Well why don't you do it then? What do you keep saying you will for? Why don't you do it? It's because you're afraid.\"\n\n\"I ain't afraid.\"\n\n\"You are.\"\n\n\"I ain't.\"\n\n\"You are.\"\n\nAnother pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:\n\n\"Get away from here!\"\n\n\"Go away yourself!\"\n\n\"I won't.\"\n\n\"I won't either.\"\n\nSo they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said:\n\n\"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too.\"\n\n\"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger than he is -- and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too.\" [Both brothers were imaginary.]\n\n\"That's a lie.\"\n\n\"Your saying so don't make it so.\"\n\nTom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said:\n\n\"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep.\"\n\nThe new boy stepped over promptly, and said:\n\n\"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it.\"\n\n\"Don't you crowd me now; you better look out.\"\n\n\"Well, you said you'd do it -- why don't you do it?\"\n\n\"By jingo! for two cents I will do it.\"\n\nThe new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other's nose, and covered themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him with his fists. \"Holler 'nuff!\" said he.\n\nThe boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying -- mainly from rage.\n\n\"Holler 'nuff!\" -- and the pounding went on.\n\nAt last the stranger got out a smothered \"'Nuff!\" and Tom let him up and said:\n\n\"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with next time.\"\n\nThe new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and threatening what he would do to Tom the \"next time he caught him out.\" To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away; but he said he \"'lowed\" to \"lay\" for that boy.\n\nHe got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. \n"}, {"category": "twain", "text": "The sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.\n\nThen Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to \"get his verses.\" Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter. At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary took his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through the fog:\n\n\"Blessed are the -- a -- a --\"\n\n\"Poor\" --\n\n\"Yes -- poor; blessed are the poor -- a -- a --\"\n\n\"In spirit --\"\n\n\"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they -- they --\"\n\n\"Theirs --\"\n\n\"For theirs. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they -- they --\"\n\n\"Sh --\"\n\n\"For they -- a --\"\n\n\"S, H, A --\"\n\n\"For they S, H -- Oh, I don't know what it is!\"\n\n\"Shall!\"\n\n\"Oh, shall! for they shall -- for they shall -- a -- a -- shall mourn -- a-- a -- blessed are they that shall -- they that -- a -- they that shall mourn, for they shall -- a -- shall What? Why don't you tell me, Mary? -- what do you want to be so mean for?\"\n\n\"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom, you'll manage it -- and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice. There, now, that's a good boy.\"\n\n\"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is.\"\n\n\"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's nice, it is nice.\"\n\n\"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll tackle it again.\"\n\nAnd he did \"tackle it again\" -- and under the double pressure of curiosity and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new \"Barlow\" knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a \"sure-enough\" Barlow, and there was inconceivable grandeur in that -- though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin on the bureau, when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.\n\nMary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves; poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the kitchen and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the door. But Mary removed the towel and said:\n\n\"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so bad. Water won't hurt you.\"\n\nTom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time he stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big breath and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes shut and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony of suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and his own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of his clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years -- they were simply called his \"other clothes\" -- and so by that we know the size of his wardrobe. The girl \"put him to rights\" after he had dressed himself; she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his vast shirt collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned him with his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought them out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do everything he didn't want to do. But Mary said, persuasively:\n\n\"Please, Tom -- that's a good boy.\"\n\nSo he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three children set out for Sunday-school -- a place that Tom hated with his whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.\n\nSabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon voluntarily, and the other always remained too -- for stronger reasons. The church's high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three hundred persons; the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort of pine board tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom dropped back a step and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade:\n\n\"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What'll you take for her?\"\n\n\"What'll you give?\"\n\n\"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook.\"\n\n\"Less see 'em.\"\n\nTom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands. Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and some small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten or fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm of clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave, elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear him say \"Ouch!\" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole class were of a pattern -- restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses perfectly, but had to be prompted all along. However, they worried through, and each got his reward -- in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way -- it was the patient work of two years -- and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth -- a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out and \"spread himself.\" Only the older pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the eclat that came with it.\n\nIn due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert -- though why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of music is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a slim creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair; he wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his ears and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his mouth -- a fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning of the whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped on a spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note, and had fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the fashion of the day, like sleigh-runners -- an effect patiently and laboriously produced by the young men by sitting with their toes pressed against a wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest of mien, and very sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred things and places in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly matters, that unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had acquired a peculiar intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He began after this fashion:\n\n\"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There -- that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one little girl who is looking out of the window -- I am afraid she thinks I am out there somewhere -- perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you how good it makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces assembled in a place like this, learning to do right and be good.\" And so forth and so on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the oration. It was of a pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar to us all.\n\nThe latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases of isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every sound ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters' voice, and the conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent gratitude.\n\nA good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which was more or less rare -- the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher, accompanied by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged gentleman with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless the latter's wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom had been restless and full of chafings and repinings; conscience-smitten, too -- he could not meet Amy Lawrence's eye, he could not brook her loving gaze. But when he saw this small new-comer his soul was all ablaze with bliss in a moment. The next moment he was \"showing off\" with all his might -- cuffing boys, pulling hair, making faces -- in a word, using every art that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and win her applause. His exaltation had but one alloy -- the memory of his humiliation in this angel's garden -- and that record in sand was fast washing out, under the waves of happiness that were sweeping over it now.\n\nThe visitors were given the highest seat of honor, and as soon as Mr. Walters' speech was finished, he introduced them to the school. The middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious personage -- no less a one than the county judge -- altogether the most august creation these children had ever looked upon -- and they wondered what kind of material he was made of -- and they half wanted to hear him roar, and were half afraid he might, too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away -- so he had travelled, and seen the world -- these very eyes had looked upon the county court-house -- which was said to have a tin roof. The awe which these reflections inspired was attested by the impressive silence and the ranks of staring eyes. This was the great Judge Thatcher, brother of their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher immediately went forward, to be familiar with the great man and be envied by the school. It would have been music to his soul to hear the whisperings:\n\n\"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there. Say -- look! he's a going to shake hands with him -- he is shaking hands with him! By jings, don't you wish you was Jeff?\"\n\nMr. Walters fell to \"showing off,\" with all sorts of official bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments, discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a target. The librarian \"showed off\" -- running hither and thither with his arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers \"showed off\" -- bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers \"showed off\" with small scoldings and other little displays of authority and fine attention to discipline -- and most of the teachers, of both sexes, found business up at the library, by the pulpit; and it was business that frequently had to be done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation). The little girls \"showed off\" in various ways, and the little boys \"showed off\" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself in the sun of his own grandeur -- for he was \"showing off,\" too.\n\nThere was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy complete, and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough -- he had been around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a sound mind.\n\nAnd now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no getting around it -- here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy -- but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.\n\nThe prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light, perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises -- a dozen would strain his capacity, without a doubt.\n\nAmy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried to make Tom see it in her face -- but he wouldn't look. She wondered; then she was just a grain troubled; next a dim suspicion came and went -- came again; she watched; a furtive glance told her worlds -- and then her heart broke, and she was jealous, and angry, and the tears came and she hated everybody. Tom most of all (she thought).\n\nTom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied, his breath would hardly come, his heart quaked -- partly because of the awful greatness of the man, but mainly because he was her parent. He would have liked to fall down and worship him, if it were in the dark. The Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called him a fine little man, and asked him what his name was. The boy stammered, gasped, and got it out:\n\n\"Tom.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not Tom -- it is --\"\n\n\"Thomas.\"\n\n\"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to it, maybe. That's very well. But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't you?\"\n\n\"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas,\" said Walters, \"and say sir. You mustn't forget your manners.\"\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer -- sir.\"\n\n\"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow. Two thousand verses is a great many -- very, very great many. And you never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all owing to the precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood -- it's all owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn -- it's all owing to the good superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me, and gave me a beautiful Bible -- a splendid elegant Bible -- to keep and have it all for my own, always -- it's all owing to right bringing up! That is what you will say, Thomas -- and you wouldn't take any money for those two thousand verses -- no indeed you wouldn't. And now you wouldn't mind telling me and this lady some of the things you've learned -- no, I know you wouldn't -- for we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no doubt you know the names of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us the names of the first two that were appointed?\"\n\nTom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed, now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said to himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest question -- why did the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged to speak up and say:\n\n\"Answer the gentleman, Thomas -- don't be afraid.\"\n\nTom still hung fire.\n\n\"Now I know you'll tell me,\" said the lady. \"The names of the first two disciples were --\"\n\n\"David and Goliath!\"\n\nLet us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene. \n"}, {"category": "twain", "text": "Tom presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom, breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing murmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting -- for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: \"Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?\"\n\n\"What, a'ready? How much have you done?\"\n\n\"It's all done, aunt.\"\n\n\"Tom, don't lie to me -- I can't bear it.\"\n\n\"I ain't, aunt; it is all done.\"\n\nAunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence whitewashed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. She said:\n\n\"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're a mind to, Tom.\" And then she diluted the compliment by adding, \"But it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you.\"\n\nShe was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he \"hooked\" a doughnut.\n\nThen he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his black thread and getting him into trouble.\n\nTom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the back of his aunt's cowstable. He presently got safely beyond the reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of the village, where two \"military\" companies of boys had met for conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person -- that being better suited to the still smaller fry -- but sat together on an eminence and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.\n\nAs he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in the garden -- a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done.\n\nHe worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began to \"show off\" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she disappeared.\n\nThe boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction. Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side, in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a minute -- only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next his heart -- or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.\n\nHe returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, \"showing off,\" as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.\n\nAll through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered \"what had got into the child.\" He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:\n\n\"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it.\"\n\n\"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into that sugar if I warn't watching you.\"\n\nPresently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl -- a sort of glorying over Tom which was well-nigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model \"catch it.\" He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to himself, \"Now it's coming!\" And the next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom cried out:\n\n\"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting me for? -- Sid broke it!\"\n\nAunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when she got her tongue again, she only said:\n\n\"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough.\"\n\nThen her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart. Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then, through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign -- a poor little sufferer, whose griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.\n\nHe wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world? This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he worked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new and varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighing and departed in the darkness.\n\nAbout half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell upon his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with his hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower. And thus he would die -- out in the cold world, with no shelter over his homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly over him when the great agony came. And thus she would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?\n\nThe window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!\n\nThe strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the fence and shot away in the gloom.\n\nNot long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he had any dim idea of making any \"references to allusions,\" he thought better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye.\n\nTom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made mental note of the omission. \n"}, {"category": "shakespeare", "text": "\n\nActus Tertius. Scena Prima.\n\nEnter Antipholus of Ephesus, his man Dromio, Angelo the Goldsmith, and Balthaser the Merchant.\n\nE.Anti.\nGood signior Angelo you must excuse vs all,\nMy wife is shrewish when I keepe not howres;\nSay that I lingerd with you at your shop\nTo see the making of her Carkanet,\nAnd that to morrow you will bring it home.\nBut here's a villaine that would face me downe\nHe met me on the Mart, and that I beat him,\nAnd charg'd him with a thousand markes in gold,\nAnd that I did denie my wife and house;\nThou drunkard thou, what didst thou meane by this?\n\nE.Dro.\nSay what you wil sir, but I know what I know,\nThat you beat me at the Mart I haue your hand to show;\nIf the skin were parchment, & the blows you gaue were ink,\nYour owne hand-writing would tell you what I thinke.\n\nE.Ant.\nI thinke thou art an asse.\n\nE.Dro.\nMarry so it doth appeare\nBy the wrongs I suffer, and the blowes I beare,\nI should kicke being kickt, and being at that passe,\nYou would keepe from my heeles, and beware of an asse.\n\nE.An.\nY'are sad signior Balthazar, pray God our cheer\nMay answer my good will, and your good welcom here.\n\nBal.\nI hold your dainties cheap sir, & your welcom deer.\n\nE.An.\nOh signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,\nA table full of welcome, makes scarce one dainty dish.\n\nBal.\nGood meat sir is co[m]mon that euery churle affords.\n\nAnti.\nAnd welcome more common, for thats nothing but words.\n\nBal.\nSmall cheere and great welcome, makes a merrie feast.\n\nAnti.\nI, to a niggardly Host, and more sparing guest:\nBut though my cates be meane, take them in good part,\nBetter cheere may you haue, but not with better hart.\nBut soft, my doore is lockt; goe bid them let vs in.\n\nE.Dro.\nMaud, Briget, Marian, Cisley, Gillian, Ginn.\n\nS.Dro.\nMome, Malthorse, Capon, Coxcombe, Idiot, Patch,\nEither get thee from the dore, or sit downe at the hatch:\nDost thou coniure for wenches, that thou calst for such store,\nWhen one is one too many, goe get thee from the dore.\n\nE.Dro.\nWhat patch is made our Porter? my Master stayes in the street.\n\nS.Dro.\nLet him walke from whence he came, lest hee catch cold on's feet.\n\nE.Ant.\nWho talks within there? hoa, open the dore.\n\nS.Dro.\nRight sir, Ile tell you when, and you'll tell me wherefore.\n\nAnt.\nWherefore? for my dinner: I haue not din'd to day.\n\nS.Dro.\nNor to day here you must not come againe when you may.\n\nAnti.\nWhat art thou that keep'st mee out from the howse I owe?\n\nS.Dro.\nThe Porter for this time Sir, and my name is Dromio.\n\nE.Dro.\nO villaine, thou hast stolne both mine office and my name,\nThe one nere got me credit, the other mickle blame:\nIf thou hadst beene Dromio to day in my place,\nThou wouldst haue chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an asse.\n\nEnter Luce.\nLuce.\n\nWhat a coile is there Dromio? who are those at the gate?\n\nE.Dro.\nLet my Master in Luce.\n\nLuce.\nFaith no, hee comes too late, and so tell your Master.\n\nE.Dro.\nO Lord I must laugh, haue at you with a Prouerbe,\nShall I set in my staffe.\n\nLuce.\nHaue at you with another, that's when? can you tell?\n\nS.Dro.\nIf thy name be called Luce, Luce thou hast an-swer'd him well.\n\nAnti.\nDoe you heare you minion, you'll let vs in I hope?\n\nLuce.\nI thought to haue askt you.\n\nS.Dro.\nAnd you said no.\n\nE.Dro.\nSo come helpe, well strooke, there was blow for blow.\n\nAnti.\nThou baggage let me in.\n\nLuce.\nCan you tell for whose sake?\n\nE.Drom.\nMaster, knocke the doore hard.\n\nLuce.\nLet him knocke till it ake.\n\nAnti.\nYou'll crie for this minion, if I beat the doore downe.\n\nLuce.\nWhat needs all that, and a paire of stocks in the towne?\n\nEnter Adriana.\nAdr.\n\nWho is that at the doore that keeps all this noise?\n\nS.Dro.\nBy my troth your towne is troubled with vnruly boies.\n\nAnti.\nAre you there Wife? you might haue come before.\n\nAdri.\nYour wife sir knaue? go get you from the dore.\n\nE.Dro.\nIf you went in paine Master, this knaue wold goe sore.\n\nAngelo.\nHeere is neither cheere sir, nor welcome, we would faine haue either.\n\nBaltz.\nIn debating which was best, wee shall part with neither.\n\nE.Dro.\nThey stand at the doore, Master, bid them welcome hither.\n\nAnti.\nThere is something in the winde, that we cannot get in.\n\nE.Dro.\nYou would say so Master, if your garments were thin.\nYour cake here is warme within: you stand here in the cold.\nIt would make a man mad as a Bucke to be so bought and sold.\n\nAnt.\nGo fetch me something, Ile break ope the gate.\n\nS.Dro.\nBreake any breaking here, and Ile breake your knaues pate.\n\nE.Dro.\nA man may breake a word with your sir, and words are but winde:\nI and breake it in your face, so he break it not behinde.\n\nS.Dro.\nIt seemes thou want'st breaking, out vpon thee hinde.\n\nE.Dro.\nHere's too much out vpon thee, I pray thee let me in.\n\nS.Dro.\nI, when fowles haue no feathers, and fish haue no fin.\n\nAnt.\nWell, Ile breake in: go borrow me a crow.\n\nE.Dro.\nA crow without feather, Master meane you so;\n\nFor a fish without a finne, ther's a fowle without a fether,\nIf a crow help vs in sirra, wee'll plucke a crow together.\n\nAnt.\nGo, get thee gon, fetch me an iron Crow.\n\nBalth.\nHaue patience sir, oh let it not be so,\nHeerein you warre against your reputation,\nAnd draw within the compasse of suspect\nTh' vnuiolated honor of your wife.\nOnce this your long experience of your wisedome,\nHer sober vertue, yeares, and modestie,\nPlead on your part some cause to you vnknowne;\nAnd doubt not sir, but she will well excuse\nWhy at this time the dores are made against you.\nBe rul'd by me, depart in patience,\nAnd let vs to the Tyger all to dinner,\nAnd about euening come your selfe alone,\nTo know the reason of this strange restraint:\nIf by strong hand you offer to breake in\nNow in the stirring passage of the day,\nA vulgar comment will be made of it;\nAnd that supposed by the common rowt\nAgainst your yet vngalled estimation,\nThat may with foule intrusion enter in,\nAnd dwell vpon your graue when you are dead;\nFor slander liues vpon succession:\nFor euer hows'd, where it gets possession.\n\nAnti.\nYou haue preuail'd, I will depart in quiet,\nAnd in despight of mirth meane to be merrie:\nI know a wench of excellent discourse,\nPrettie and wittie; wilde, and yet too gentle;\nThere will we dine: this woman that I meane\nMy wife (but I protest without desert)\nHath oftentimes vpbraided me withall:\nTo her will we to dinner, get you home\nAnd fetch the chaine, by this I know 'tis made,\nBring it I pray you to the Porpentine,\nFor there's the house: That chaine will I bestow\n(Be it for nothing but to spight my wife)\nVpon mine hostesse there, good sir make haste:\nSince mine owne doores refuse to entertaine me,\nIle knocke else-where, to see if they'll disdaine me.\n\nAng.\nIle meet you at that place some houre hence.\n\nAnti.\nDo so, this iest shall cost me some expence. Exeunt.\n\nEnter Iuliana, with Antipholus of Siracusia.\nIulia.\n\nAnd may it be that you haue quite forgot\nA husbands office? shall Antipholus\nEuen in the spring of Loue, thy Loue-springs rot?\nShall loue in buildings grow so ruinate?\nIf you did wed my sister for her wealth,\nThen for her wealths-sake vse her with more kindnesse:\nOr if you like else-where doe it by stealth,\nMuffle your false loue with some shew of blindnesse:\nLet not my sister read it in your eye:\nBe not thy tongue thy owne shames Orator:\nLooke sweet, speake faire, become disloyaltie:\nApparell vice like vertues harbenger:\nBeare a faire presence, though your heart be tainted,\nTeach sinne the carriage of a holy Saint,\nBe secret false: what need she be acquainted?\nWhat simple thiefe brags of his owne attaine?\n'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed,\nAnd let her read it in thy lookes at boord:\nShame hath a bastard fame, well managed,\nIll deeds is doubled with an euill word:\nAlas poore women, make vs not beleeue\n(Being compact of credit) that you loue vs,\nThough others haue the arme, shew vs the sleeue:\nWe in your motion turne, and you may moue vs.\nThen gentle brother get you in againe;\nComfort my sister, cheere her, call her wise;\n'Tis holy sport to be a little vaine,\nWhen the sweet breath of flatterie conquers strife.\n\nS.Anti.\nSweete Mistris, what your name is else I know not;\nNor by what wonder you do hit of mine:\nLesse in your knowledge, and your grace you show not,\nThen our earths wonder, more then earth diuine.\nTeach me deere creature how to thinke and speake:\nLay open to my earthie grosse conceit:\nSmothred in errors, feeble, shallow, weake,\nThe foulded meaning of your words deceit:\nAgainst my soules pure truth, why labour you,\nTo make it wander in an vnknowne field?\nAre you a god? would you create me new?\nTransforme me then, and to your powre Ile yeeld.\nBut if that I am I, then well I know,\nYour weeping sister is no wife of mine,\nNor to her bed no homage doe I owe:\nFarre more, farre more, to you doe I decline:\nOh traine me not sweet Mermaide with thy note,\nTo drowne me in thy sister floud of teares:\nSing Siren for thy selfe, and I will dote:\nSpread ore the siluer waues thy golden haires;\nAnd as a bud Ile take thee, and there lie:\nAnd in that glorious supposition thinke,\nHe gaines by death, that hath such meanes to die:\nLet Loue, being light, be drowned if she sinke.\n\nLuc.\nWhat are you mad, that you doe reason so?\n\nAnt.\nNot mad, but mated, how I doe not know.\n\nLuc.\nIt is a fault that springeth from your eie.\n\nAnt.\nFor gazing on your beames faire sun being by.\n\nLuc.\nGaze when you should, and that will cleere your sight.\n\nAnt.\nAs good to winke sweet loue, as looke on night.\n\nLuc.\nWhy call you me loue? Call my sister so.\n\nAnt.\nThy sisters sister.\n\nLuc.\nThat's my sister.\n\nAnt.\nNo: it is thy selfe, mine owne selfes better part:\nMine eies cleere eie, my deere hearts deerer heart;\nMy foode, my fortune, and my sweet hopes aime;\nMy sole earths heauen, and my heauens claime.\n\nLuc.\nAll this my sister is, or else should be.\n\nAnt.\nCall thy selfe sister sweet, for I am thee:\nThee will I loue, and with thee lead my life;\nThou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife:\nGiue me thy hand.\n\nLuc.\nOh soft sir, hold you still:\nIle fetch my sister to get her good will. Exit.\n\nEnter Dromio, Siracusia.\nAnt.\n\nWhy how now Dromio, where run'st thou so fast?\n\nS.Dro.\nDoe you know me sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I my selfe?\n\nAnt.\nThou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thy selfe.\n\nDro.\nI am an asse, I am a womans man, and besides my selfe.\n\nAnt.\nWhat womans man? and how besides thy selfe?\n\nDro.\nMarrie sir, besides my selfe, I am due to a woman: One that claimes me, one that haunts me, one that will haue me.\n\nAnti.\nWhat claime laies she to thee?\n\nDro.\nMarry sir, such claime as you would lay to your horse, and she would haue me as a beast, not that I beeing a beast she would haue me, but that she being a verie beastly creature layes claime to me.\n\nAnti.\nWhat is she?\n\nDro.\nA very reuerent body: I such a one, as a man may not speake of, without he say sir reuerence, I haue but leane lucke in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.\n\nAnti.\nHow dost thou meane a fat marriage?\n\nDro.\nMarry sir, she's the Kitchin wench, & al grease, and I know not what vse to put her too, but to make a Lampe of her, and run from her by her owne light. I warrant, her ragges and the Tallow in them, will burne a Poland Winter: If she liues till doomesday, she'l burne a weeke longer then the whole World.\n\nAnti.\nWhat complexion is she of?\n\nDro.\nSwart like my shoo, but her face nothing like so cleane kept: for why? she sweats a man may goe o-uer-shooes in the grime of it.\n\nAnti.\nThat's a fault that water will mend.\n\nDro.\nNo sir, 'tis in graine, Noahs flood could not do it.\n\nAnti.\nWhat's her name?\n\nDro.\nNell Sir: but her name is three quarters, that's an Ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.\n\nAnti.\nThen she beares some bredth?\n\nDro.\nNo longer from head to foot, then from hippe to hippe: she is sphericall, like a globe: I could find out Countries in her.\n\nAnti.\nIn what part of her body stands Ireland?\n\nDro.\nMarry sir in her buttockes, I found it out by the bogges.\n\nAnt.\nWhere Scotland?\n\nDro.\nI found it by the barrennesse, hard in the palme of the hand.\n\nAnt.\nWhere France?\n\nDro.\nIn her forhead, arm'd and reuerted, making warre against her heire.\n\nAnt.\nWhere England?\n\nDro.\nI look'd for the chalkle Cliffes, but I could find no whitenesse in them. But I guesse, it stood in her chin by the salt rheume that ranne betweene France, and it.\n\nAnt.\nWhere Spaine?\n\nDro.\nFaith I saw it not: but I felt it hot in her breth.\n\nAnt.\nWhere America, the Indies?\n\nDro.\nOh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast at her nose.\n\nAnti.\nWhere stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\n\nDro.\nOh sir, I did not looke so low. To conclude, this drudge or Diuiner layd claime to mee, call'd mee Dromio, swore I was assur'd to her, told me what priuie markes I had about mee, as the marke of my shoulder, the Mole in my necke, the great Wart on my left arme, that I amaz'd ranne from her as a witch. And I thinke, if my brest had not beene made of faith, and my heart of steele, she had transform'd me to a Curtull dog, & made me turne i'th wheele.\n\nAnti.\nGo hie thee presently, post to the rode,\nAnd if the winde blow any way from shore,\nI will not harbour in this Towne to night.\nIf any Barke put forth, come to the Mart,\nWhere I will walke till thou returne to me:\nIf euerie one knowes vs, and we know none,\n'Tis time I thinke to trudge, packe, and be gone.\n\nDro.\nAs from a Beare a man would run for life,\nSo flie I from her that would be my wife. Exit\n\nAnti.\nThere's none but Witches do inhabite heere,\nAnd therefore 'tis hie time that I were hence:\nShe that doth call me husband, euen my soule\nDoth for a wife abhorre. But her faire sister\nPossest with such a gentle soueraigne grace,\nOf such inchanting presence and discourse,\nHath almost made me Traitor to my selfe:\nBut least my selfe be guilty to selfe wrong,\nIle stop mine eares against the Mermaids song.\n\nEnter Angelo with the Chaine.\nAng.\n\nMr Antipholus.\n\nAnti.\nI that's my name.\n\nAng.\nI know it well sir, loe here's the chaine,\nI thought to haue tane you at the Porpentine,\nThe chaine vnfinish'd made me stay thus long.\n\nAnti.\nWhat is your will that I shal do with this?\n\nAng.\nWhat please your selfe sir: I haue made it for you.\n\nAnti.\nMade it for me sir, I bespoke it not.\n\nAng.\nNot once, nor twice, but twentie times you haue:\nGo home with it, and please your Wife withall,\nAnd soone at supper time Ile visit you,\nAnd then receiue my money for the chaine.\n\nAnti.\nI pray you sir receiue the money now.\nFor feare you ne're see chaine, nor mony more.\n\nAng.\nYou are a merry man sir, fare you well. Exit.\n\nAnt.\nWhat I should thinke of this, I cannot tell:\nBut this I thinke, there's no man is so vaine,\nThat would refuse so faire an offer'd Chaine.\nI see a man heere needs not liue by shifts,\nWhen in the streets he meetes such Golden gifts:\nIle to the Mart, and there for Dromio stay,\nIf any ship put out, then straight away. Exit.\n"}, {"category": "shakespeare", "text": "\n\nActus Secundus.\n\nEnter Adriana, wife to Antipholis Sereptus, with Luciana her Sister.\n\nAdr.\nNeither my husband nor the slaue return'd,\nThat in such haste I sent to seeke his Master?\nSure Luciana it is two a clocke.\n\nLuc.\nPerhaps some Merchant hath inuited him,\nAnd from the Mart he's somewhere gone to dinner:\nGood Sister let vs dine, and neuer fret;\nA man is Master of his libertie:\nTime is their Master, and when they see time,\nThey'll goe or come; if so, be patient Sister.\n\nAdr.\nWhy should their libertie then ours be more?\n\nLuc.\nBecause their businesse still lies out a dore.\n\nAdr.\nLooke when I serue him so, he takes it thus.\n\nLuc.\nOh, know he is the bridle of your will.\n\nAdr.\nThere's none but asses will be bridled so.\n\nLuc.\nWhy, headstrong liberty is lasht with woe:\nThere's nothing situate vnder heauens eye,\nBut hath his bound in earth, in sea, in skie.\nThe beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowles\nAre their males subiects, and at their controules:\nMan more diuine, the Master of all these,\nLord of the wide world, and wilde watry seas,\nIndued with intellectuall sence and soules,\nOf more preheminence then fish and fowles,\nAre masters to their females, and their Lords:\nThen let your will attend on their accords.\n\nAdri.\nThis seruitude makes you to keepe vnwed.\n\nLuci.\nNot this, but troubles of the marriage bed.\n\nAdr.\nBut were you wedded, you wold bear some sway\n\nLuc.\nEre I learne loue, Ile practise to obey.\n\nAdr.\nHow if your husband start some other where?\n\nLuc.\nTill he come home againe, I would forbeare.\n\nAdr.\nPatience vnmou'd, no maruel though she pause,\nThey can be meeke, that haue no other cause:\nA wretched soule bruis'd with aduersitie,\nWe bid be quiet when we heare it crie.\nBut were we burdned with like waight of paine,\nAs much, or more, we should our selues complaine:\nSo thou that hast no vnkinde mate to greeue thee,\nWith vrging helpelesse patience would releeue me;\nBut if thou liue to see like right bereft,\nThis foole-beg'd patience in thee will be left.\n\nLuci.\nWell, I will marry one day but to trie:\nHeere comes your man, now is your husband nie.\n\nEnter Dromio Eph.\nAdr.\n\nSay, is your tardie master now at hand?\n\nE.Dro.\nNay, hee's at too hands with mee, and that my two eares can witnesse.\n\nAdr.\nSay, didst thou speake with him? knowst thou his minde?\n\nE.Dro.\nI, I, he told his minde vpon mine eare,\nBeshrew his hand, I scarce could vnderstand it.\n\nLuc.\nSpake hee so doubtfully, thou couldst not feele his meaning.\n\nE.Dro.\nNay, hee strooke so plainly, I could too well\nfeele his blowes; and withall so doubtfully, that I could\nscarce vnderstand them.\n\nAdri.\nBut say, I prethee, is he comming home?\nIt seemes he hath great care to please his wife.\n\nE.Dro.\nWhy Mistresse, sure my Master is horne mad.\n\nAdri.\nHorne mad, thou villaine?\n\nE.Dro. I meane not Cuckold mad,\nBut sure he is starke mad:\nWhen I desir'd him to come home to dinner,\nHe ask'd me for a hundred markes in gold:\n'Tis dinner time, quoth I: my gold, quoth he:\nYour meat doth burne, quoth I: my gold quoth he:\nWill you come, quoth I: my gold, quoth he;\nWhere is the thousand markes I gaue thee villaine?\nThe Pigge quoth I, is burn'd: my gold, quoth he:\nMy mistresse, sir, quoth I: hang vp thy Mistresse:\nI know not thy mistresse, out on thy mistresse.\n\nLuci.\nQuoth who?\n\nE.Dr.\nQuoth my Master, I know quoth he, no house, no wife, no mistresse: so that my arrant due vnto my tongue, I thanke him, I bare home vpon my shoulders: for in conclusion, he did beat me there.\n\nAdri.\nGo back againe, thou slaue, & fetch him home.\n\nDro.\nGoe backe againe, and be new beaten home?\nFor Gods sake send some other messenger.\n\nAdri.\nBacke slaue, or I will breake thy pate a-crosse.\n\nDro.\nAnd he will blesse the crosse with other beating:\nBetweene you, I shall haue a holy head.\n\nAdri.\nHence prating pesant, fetch thy Master home.\n\nDro.\nAm I so round with you, as you with me,\nThat like a foot-ball you doe spurne me thus:\nYou spurne me hence, and he will spurne me hither,\nIf I last in this seruice, you must case me in leather.\n\nLuci.\nFie how impatience lowreth in your face.\n\nAdri.\nHis company must do his minions grace,\nWhil'st I at home starue for a merrie looke:\nHath homelie age th' alluring beauty tooke\nFrom my poore cheeke? then he hath wasted it.\nAre my discourses dull? Barren my wit,\nIf voluble and sharpe discourse be mar'd,\nVnkindnesse blunts it more then marble hard.\nDoe their gay vestments his affections baite?\nThat's not my fault, hee's master of my state.\nWhat ruines are in me that can be found,\nBy him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground\nOf my defeatures. My decayed faire,\nA sunnie looke of his, would soone repaire.\nBut, too vnruly Deere, he breakes the pale,\nAnd feedes from home; poore I am but his stale.\n\nLuci.\nSelfe-harming Iealousie; fie beat it hence.\n\nAd.\nVnfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispence:\nI know his eye doth homage other-where,\nOr else, what lets it but he would be here?\nSister, you know he promis'd me a chaine,\nWould that alone, a loue he would detaine,\nSo he would keepe faire quarter with his bed:\nI see the Iewell best enamaled\nWill loose his beautie: yet the gold bides still\nThat others touch, and often touching will,\nWhere gold and no man that hath a name,\nBy falshood and corruption doth it shame:\nSince that my beautie cannot please his eie,\nIle weepe (what's left away) and weeping die.\n\nLuci.\nHow manie fond fooles serue mad Ielousie? Exit.\n\nEnter Antipholis Errotis.\nAnt.\n\nThe gold I gaue to Dromio is laid vp\nSafe at the Centaur, and the heedfull slaue\nIs wandred forth in care to seeke me out\nBy computation and mine hosts report.\nI could not speake with Dromio, since at first\nI sent him from the Mart? see here he comes.\n\nEnter Dromio Siracusia.\nHow now sir, is your merrie humor alter'd?\n\nAs you loue stroakes, so iest with me againe:\nYou know no Centaur? you receiu'd no gold?\nYour Mistresse sent to haue me home to dinner?\nMy house was at the Ph\u0153nix? Wast thou mad,\nThat thus so madlie thou did didst answere me?\n\nS.Dro.\nWhat answer sir? when spake I such a word?\n\nE.Ant.\nEuen now, euen here, not halfe an howre since.\n\nS.Dro.\nI did not see you since you sent me hence\nHome to the Centaur with the gold you gaue me.\n\nAnt.\nVillaine, thou didst denie the golds receit,\nAnd toldst me of a Mistresse, and a dinner,\nFor which I hope thou feltst I was displeas'd.\n\nS.Dro. I am glad to see you in this merrie vaine,\nWhat meanes this iest, I pray you Master tell me?\n\nAnt.\nYea, dost thou ieere & flowt me in the teeth?\nThinkst thou I iest? hold, take thou that, & that. Beats Dro.\n\nS.Dr.\nHold sir, for Gods sake, now your iest is earnest,\nVpon what bargaine do you giue it me?\n\nAntiph.\nBecause that I familiarlie sometimes\nDoe vse you for my foole, and chat with you,\nYour sawcinesse will iest vpon my loue,\nAnd make a Common of my serious howres,\nWhen the sunne shines, let foolish gnats make sport,\nBut creepe in crannies, when he hides his beames:\nIf you will iest with me, know my aspect,\nAnd fashion your demeanor to my lookes,\nOr I will beat this method in your sconce.\n\nS.Dro.\nSconce call you it? so you would leaue battering, I had rather haue it a head, and you vse these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and Insconce it to, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders, but I pray sir, why am I beaten?\n\nAnt.\nDost thou not know?\n\nS.Dro.\nNothing sir, but that I am beaten.\n\nAnt.\nShall I tell you why?\n\nS.Dro.\nI sir, and wherefore; for they say, euery why hath a wherefore.\n\nAnt.\nWhy first for flowting me, and then wherefore, for vrging it the second time to me.\n\nS.Dro.\nWas there euer anie man thus beaten out of season, when in the why and the wherefore, is neither rime nor reason. Well sir, I thanke you.\n\nAnt.\nThanke me sir, for what?\n\nS.Dro.\nMarry sir, for this something that you gaue me for nothing.\n\nAnt.\nIle make you amends next, to giue you nothing for something. But say sir, is it dinner time?\n\nS.Dro.\nNo sir, I thinke the meat wants that I haue.\n\nAnt.\nIn good time sir: what's that?\n\nS.Dro.\nBasting.\n\nAnt.\nWell sir, then 'twill be drie.\n\nS.Dro.\nIf it be sir, I pray you eat none of it.\n\nAnt.\nYour reason?\n\nS.Dro.\nLest it make you chollericke, and purchase me another drie basting.\n\nAnt.\nWell sir, learne to iest in good time, there's a time for all things.\n\nS.Dro.\nI durst haue denied that before you were so chollericke.\n\nAnti.\nBy what rule sir?\n\nS.Dro.\nMarry sir, by a rule as plaine as the plaine bald pate of Father time himselfe.\n\nAnt.\nLet's heare it.\n\nS.Dro.\nThere's no time for a man to recouer his haire that growes bald by nature.\n\nAnt.\nMay he not doe it by fine and recouerie?\n\nS.Dro.\nYes, to pay a fine for a perewig, and recouer the lost haire of another man.\n\nAnt.\nWhy, is Time such a niggard of haire, being (as it is) so plentifull an excrement?\n\nS.Dro.\nBecause it is a blessing that hee bestowes on\nbeasts, and what he hath scanted them in haire, hee hath\ngiuen them in wit.\n\nAnt.\nWhy, but theres manie a man hath more haire then wit.\n\nS.Dro.\nNot a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his haire.\n\nAnt.\nWhy thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit.\n\nS.Dro.\nThe plainer dealer, the sooner lost; yet he looseth it in a kinde of iollitie.\n\nAn.\nFor what reason.\n\nS.Dro.\nFor two, and sound ones to.\n\nAn.\nNay not sound I pray you.\n\nS.Dro.\nSure ones then.\n\nAn.\nNay, not sure in a thing falsing.\n\nS.Dro.\nCertaine ones then.\n\nAn.\nName them.\n\nS.Dro.\nThe one to saue the money that he spends in trying: the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porrage.\n\nAn.\nYou would all this time haue prou'd, there is no time for all things.\n\nS.Dro.\nMarry and did sir: namely, in no time to recouer haire lost by Nature.\n\nAn.\nBut your reason was not substantiall, why there is no time to recouer.\n\nS.Dro.\nThus I mend it: Time himselfe is bald, and therefore to the worlds end, will haue bald followers.\n\nAn.\nI knew 'twould be a bald conclusion: but soft, who wafts vs yonder.\n\nEnter Adriana and Luciana.\nAdri.\n\nI, I, Antipholus, looke strange and frowne,\nSome other Mistresse hath thy sweet aspects:\nI am not Adriana, nor thy wife.\nThe time was once, when thou vn-vrg'd wouldst vow,\nThat neuer words were musicke to thine eare,\nThat neuer obiect pleasing in thine eye,\nThat neuer touch well welcome to thy hand,\nThat neuer meat sweet-sauour'd in thy taste,\nVnlesse I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or caru'd to thee.\nHow comes it now, my Husband, oh how comes it,\nThat thou art then estranged from thy selfe?\nThy selfe I call it, being strange to me:\nThat vndiuidable Incorporate\nAm better then thy deere selfes better part.\nAh doe not teare away thy selfe from me;\nFor know my loue: as easie maist thou fall\nA drop of water in the breaking gulfe,\nAnd take vnmingled thence that drop againe\nWithout addition or diminishing,\nAs take from me thy selfe, and not me too.\nHow deerely would it touch thee to the quicke,\nShouldst thou but heare I were licencious?\nAnd that this body consecrate to thee,\nBy Ruffian Lust should be contaminate?\nWouldst thou not spit at me, and spurne at me,\nAnd hurle the name of husband in my face,\nAnd teare the stain'd skin of my Harlot brow,\nAnd from my false hand cut the wedding ring,\nAnd breake it with a deepe-diuorcing vow?\nI know thou canst, and therefore see thou doe it.\nI am possest with an adulterate blot,\nMy bloud is mingled with the crime of lust:\nFor if we two be one, and thou play false,\nI doe digest the poison of thy flesh,\nBeing strumpeted by thy contagion:\nKeepe then faire league and truce with thy true bed,\nI liue distain'd, thou vndishonoured.\n\nAntip.\nPlead you to me faire dame? I know you not:\nIn Ephesus I am but two houres old,\nAs strange vnto your towne, as to your talke,\nWho euery word by all my wit being scan'd,\nWants wit in all, one word to vnderstand.\n\nLuci.\nFie brother, how the world is chang'd with you:\nWhen were you wont to vse my sister thus?\nShe sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\n\nAnt.\nBy Dromio?\n\nDrom.\nBy me.\n\nAdr.\nBy thee, and this thou didst returne from him.\nThat he did buffet thee, and in his blowes,\nDenied my house for his, me for his wife.\n\nAnt.\nDid you conuerse sir with this gentlewoman:\nWhat is the course and drift of your compact?\n\nS.Dro.\nI sir? I neuer saw her till this time.\n\nAnt.\nVillaine thou liest, for euen her verie words,\nDidst thou deliuer to me on the Mart.\n\nS.Dro.\nI neuer spake with her in all my life.\n\nAnt.\nHow can she thus then call vs by our names?\nVnlesse it be by inspiration.\n\nAdri.\nHow ill agrees it with your grauitie,\nTo counterfeit thus grosely with your slaue,\nAbetting him to thwart me in my moode;\nBe it my wrong, you are from me exempt,\nBut wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\nCome I will fasten on this sleeue of thine:\nThou art an Elme my husband, I a Vine:\nWhose weaknesse married to thy stranger state,\nMakes me with thy strength to communicate:\nIf ought possesse thee from me, it is drosse,\nVsurping Iuie, Brier, or idle Mosse,\nWho all for want of pruning, with intrusion,\nInfect thy sap, and liue on thy confusion.\n\nAnt.\nTo mee shee speakes, shee moues mee for her theame;\nWhat, was I married to her in my dreame?\nOr sleepe I now, and thinke I heare all this?\nWhat error driues our eies and eares amisse?\nVntill I know this sure vncertaintie,\nIle entertaine the free'd fallacie.\n\nLuc.\nDromio, goe bid the seruants spred for dinner.\n\nS.Dro.\nOh for my beads, I crosse me for a sinner.\nThis is the Fairie land, oh spight of spights,\nWe talke with Goblins, Owles and Sprights;\nIf we obay them not, this will insue:\nThey'll sucke our breath, or pinch vs blacke and blew.\n\nLuc.\nWhy prat'st thou to thy selfe, and answer'st not?\nDromio, thou Dromio, thou snaile, thou slug, thou sot.\n\nS.Dro.\nI am transformed Master, am I not?\n\nAnt.\nI thinke thou art in minde, and so am I.\n\nS.Dro.\nNay Master, both in minde, and in my shape.\n\nAnt.\nThou hast thine owne forme.\n\nS.Dro.\nNo, I am an Ape.\n\nLuc.\nIf thou art chang'd to ought, 'tis to an Asse.\n\nS.Dro.\n'Tis true she rides me, and I long for grasse.\n'Tis so, I am an Asse, else it could neuer be,\nBut I should know her as well as she knowes me.\n\nAdr.\nCome, come, no longer will I be a foole,\nTo put the finger in the eie and weepe;\nWhil'st man and Master laughes my woes to scorne:\nCome sir to dinner, Dromio keepe the gate:\nHusband Ile dine aboue with you to day,\nAnd shriue you of a thousand idle prankes:\nSirra, if any aske you for your Master,\nSay he dines forth, and let no creature enter:\nCome sister, Dromio play the Porter well.\n\nAnt.\nAm I in earth, in heauen, or in hell?\nSleeping or waking, mad or well aduisde:\nKnowne vnto these, and to my selfe disguisde:\nIle say as they say, and perseuer so:\nAnd in this mist at all aduentures go.\n\nS.Dro.\nMaster, shall I be Porter at the gate?\n\nAdr.\nI, and let none enter, least I breake your pate.\n\nLuc.\nCome, come, Antipholus, we dine to late. \n"}, {"category": "shakespeare", "text": "\n\nActus Quintus. Sc\u0153na Prima.\n\nEnter the Merchant and the Goldsmith.\n\nGold.\nI am sorry Sir that I haue hindred you,\nBut I protest he had the Chaine of me,\nThough most dishonestly he doth denie it.\n\nMar.\nHow is the man esteem'd heere in the Citie?\n\nGold.\nOf very reuerent reputation sir,\nOf credit infinite, highly belou'd,\nSecond to none that liues heere in the Citie:\nHis word might beare my wealth at any time.\n\nMar.\nSpeake softly, yonder as I thinke he walkes.\n\nEnter Antipholus and Dromio againe.\nGold.\n\n'Tis so: and that selfe chaine about his necke,\nWhich he forswore most monstrously to haue.\nGood sir draw neere to me, Ile speake to him:\nSignior Antipholus, I wonder much\nThat you would put me to this shame and trouble,\nAnd not without some scandall to your selfe,\nWith circumstance and oaths, so to denie\nThis Chaine, which now you weare so openly.\nBeside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\nYou haue done wrong to this my honest friend,\nWho but for staying on our Controuersie,\nHad hoisted saile, and put to sea to day:\nThis Chaine you had of me, can you deny it?\n\nAnt.\nI thinke I had, I neuer did deny it.\n\nMar.\nYes that you did sir, and forswore it too.\n\nAnt.\nWho heard me to denie it or forsweare it?\n\nMar.\nThese eares of mine thou knowst did hear thee:\nFie on thee wretch, 'tis pitty that thou liu'st\nTo walke where any honest men resort.\n\nAnt.\nThou art a Villaine to impeach me thus,\nIle proue mine honor, and mine honestie\nAgainst thee presently, if thou dar'st stand:\n\nMar.\nI dare and do defie thee for a villaine.\n\nThey draw. Enter Adriana, Luciana, Courtezan, & others.\nAdr.\n\nHold, hurt him not for God sake, he is mad,\nSome get within him, take his sword away:\nBinde Dromio too, and beare them to my house.\n\nS.Dro.\nRunne master run, for Gods sake take a house,\nThis is some Priorie, in, or we are spoyl'd. Exeunt to the Priorie.\n\nEnter Ladie Abbesse.\n\nAb.\nBe quiet people, wherefore throng you hither?\n\nAdr.\nTo fetch my poore distracted husband hence,\nLet vs come in, that we may binde him fast,\nAnd beare him home for his recouerie.\n\nGold.\nI knew he was not in his perfect wits.\n\nMar.\nI am sorry now that I did draw on him.\n\nAb.\nHow long hath this possession held the man.\n\nAdr.\nThis weeke he hath beene heauie, sower sad,\nAnd much different from the man he was:\nBut till this afternoone his passion\nNe're brake into extremity of rage.\n\nAb.\nHath he not lost much wealth by wrack of sea,\nBuried some deere friend, hath not else his eye\nStray'd his affection in vnlawfull loue,\nA sinne preuailing much in youthfull men,\nWho giue their eies the liberty of gazing.\nWhich of these sorrowes is he subiect too?\n\nAdr.\nTo none of these, except it be the last,\nNamely, some loue that drew him oft from home.\n\nAb.\nYou should for that haue reprehended him.\n\nAdr.\nWhy so I did.\n\nAb.\nI but not rough enough.\n\nAdr.\nAs roughly as my modestie would let me.\n\nAb.\nHaply in priuate.\n\nAdr.\nAnd in assemblies too.\n\nAb.\nI, but not enough.\n\nAdr.\nIt was the copie of our Conference.\nIn bed he slept not for my vrging it,\nAt boord he fed not for my vrging it:\nAlone, it was the subiect of my Theame:\nIn company I often glanced it:\nStill did I tell him, it was vilde and bad.\n\nAb.\nAnd thereof came it, that the man was mad.\nThe venome clamors of a iealous woman,\nPoisons more deadly then a mad dogges tooth.\nIt seemes his sleepes were hindred by thy railing,\nAnd thereof comes it that his head is light.\nThou saist his meate was sawc'd with thy vpbraidings,\nVnquiet meales make ill digestions,\nThereof the raging fire of feauer bred,\nAnd what's a Feauer, but a fit of madnesse?\nThou sayest his sports were hindred by thy bralles.\nSweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\nBut moodie and dull melancholly,\nKinsman to grim and comfortlesse dispaire,\nAnd at her heeles a huge infectious troope\nOf pale distemperatures, and foes to life?\nIn food, in sport, and life-preseruing rest\nTo be disturb'd, would mad or man, or beast:\nThe consequence is then, thy iealous fits\nHath scar'd thy husband from the vse of wits.\n\nLuc.\nShe neuer reprehended him but mildely,\nWhen he demean'd himselfe, rough, rude, and wildly,\nWhy beare you these rebukes, and answer not?\n\nAdri.\nShe did betray me to my owne reproofe,\nGood people enter, and lay hold on him.\n\nAb.\nNo, not a creature enters in my house.\n\nAd.\nThen let your seruants bring my husband forth\n\nAb.\nNeither: he tooke this place for sanctuary,\nAnd it shall priuiledge him from your hands,\nTill I haue brought him to his wits againe,\nOr loose my labour in assaying it.\n\nAdr.\nI will attend my husband, be his nurse,\nDiet his sicknesse, for it is my Office,\nAnd will haue no atturney but my selfe,\nAnd therefore let me haue him home with me.\n\nAb.\nBe patient, for I will not let him stirre,\nTill I haue vs'd the approoued meanes I haue,\nWith wholsome sirrups, drugges, and holy prayers\nTo make of him a formall man againe:\nIt is a branch and parcell of mine oath,\nA charitable dutie of my order,\nTherefore depart, and leaue him heere with me.\n\nAdr.\nI will not hence, and leaue my husband heere:\nAnd ill it doth beseeme your holinesse\nTo separate the husband and the wife.\n\nAb.\nBe quiet and depart, thou shalt not haue him.\n\nLuc.\nComplaine vnto the Duke of this indignity.\n\nAdr.\nCome go, I will fall prostrate at his feete,\nAnd neuer rise vntill my teares and prayers\nHaue won his grace to come in person hither,\nAnd take perforce my husband from the Abbesse.\n\nMar.\nBy this I thinke the Diall points at fiue:\nAnon I'me sure the Duke himselfe in person\nComes this way to the melancholly vale;\nThe place of depth, and sorrie execution,\nBehinde the ditches of the Abbey heere.\n\nGold.\nVpon what cause?\n\nMar.\nTo see a reuerent Siracusian Merchant,\nWho put vnluckily into this Bay\nAgainst the Lawes and Statutes of this Towne,\nBeheaded publikely for his offence.\n\nGold.\nSee where they come, we wil behold his death\n\nLuc.\nKneele to the Duke before he passe the Abbey.\nEnter the Duke of Ephesus, and the Merchant of Siracuse\nbare head, with the Headsman, & other\nOfficers.\n\nDuke.\nYet once againe proclaime it publikely,\nIf any friend will pay the summe for him,\nHe shall not die, so much we tender him.\n\nAdr.\nIustice most sacred Duke against the Abbesse.\n\nDuke.\nShe is a vertuous and a reuerend Lady,\nIt cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\n\nAdr.\nMay it please your Grace, Antipholus my husba[n]d,\nWho I made Lord of me, and all I had,\nAt your important Letters this ill day,\nA most outragious fit of madnesse tooke him:\nThat desp'rately he hurried through the streete,\nWith him his bondman, all as mad as he,\nDoing displeasure to the Citizens,\nBy rushing in their houses: bearing thence\nRings, Iewels, any thing his rage did like.\nOnce did I get him bound, and sent him home,\nWhil'st to take order for the wrongs I went,\nThat heere and there his furie had committed,\nAnon I wot not, by what strong escape\nHe broke from those that had the guard of him,\nAnd with his mad attendant and himselfe,\nEach one with irefull passion, with drawne swords\nMet vs againe, and madly bent on vs\nChac'd vs away: till raising of more aide\nWe came againe to binde them: then they fled\nInto this Abbey, whether we pursu'd them,\nAnd heere the Abbesse shuts the gates on vs,\nAnd will not suffer vs to fetch him out,\nNor send him forth, that we may beare him hence.\n\nTherefore most gracious Duke with thy command,\nLet him be brought forth, and borne hence for helpe.\n\nDuke.\nLong since thy husband seru'd me in my wars\nAnd I to thee ingag'd a Princes word,\nWhen thou didst make him Master of thy bed,\nTo do him all the grace and good I could.\nGo some of you, knocke at the Abbey gate,\nAnd bid the Lady Abbesse come to me:\nI will determine this before I stirre.\n\nEnter a Messenger.\nOh Mistris, Mistris, shift and saue your selfe,\n\nMy Master and his man are both broke loose,\nBeaten the Maids a-row, and bound the Doctor,\nWhose beard they haue sindg'd off with brands of fire,\nAnd euer as it blaz'd, they threw on him\nGreat pailes of puddled myre to quench the haire;\nMy Mr preaches patience to him, and the while\nHis man with Cizers nickes him like a foole:\nAnd sure (vnlesse you send some present helpe)\nBetweene them they will kill the Coniurer.\n\nAdr.\nPeace foole, thy Master and his man are here,\nAnd that is false thou dost report to vs.\n\nMess.\nMistris, vpon my life I tel you true,\nI haue not breath'd almost since I did see it.\nHe cries for you, and vowes if he can take you,\nTo scorch your face, and to disfigure you:\n\nCry within.\nHarke, harke, I heare him Mistris: flie, be gone.\n\n\nDuke.\nCome stand by me, feare nothing: guard with Halberds.\n\nAdr.\nAy me, it is my husband: witnesse you,\nThat he is borne about inuisible,\nEuen now we hous'd him in the Abbey heere.\nAnd now he's there, past thought of humane reason.\n\nEnter Antipholus, and E.Dromio of Ephesus.\n\nE.Ant.\nIustice most gracious Duke, oh grant me iustice,\nEuen for the seruice that long since I did thee,\nWhen I bestrid thee in the warres, and tooke\nDeepe scarres to saue thy life; euen for the blood\nThat then I lost for thee, now grant me iustice.\nMar.Fat. Vnlesse the feare of death doth make me\ndote, I see my sonne Antipholus and Dromio.\n\nE.Ant.\nIustice (sweet Prince) against that Woman there:\nShe whom thou gau'st to me to be my wife;\nThat hath abused and dishonored me,\nEuen in the strength and height of iniurie:\nBeyond imagination is the wrong\nThat she this day hath shamelesse throwne on me.\n\nDuke.\nDiscouer how, and thou shalt finde me iust.\n\nE.Ant.\nThis day (great Duke) she shut the doores vpon me,\nWhile she with Harlots feasted in my house.\n\nDuke.\nA greeuous fault: say woman, didst thou so?\n\nAdr.\nNo my good Lord. My selfe, he, and my sister,\nTo day did dine together: so befall my soule,\nAs this is false he burthens me withall.\n\nLuc.\nNere may I looke on day, nor sleepe on night,\nBut she tels to your Highnesse simple truth.\n\nGold.\nO periur'd woman! They are both forsworne,\nIn this the Madman iustly chargeth them.\n\nE.Ant.\nMy Liege, I am aduised what I say,\nNeither disturbed with the effect of Wine,\nNor headie-rash prouoak'd with raging ire,\nAlbeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\nThis woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;\nThat Goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\nCould witnesse it: for he was with me then,\nWho parted with me to go fetch a Chaine,\nPromising to bring it to the Porpentine,\nWhere Balthasar and I did dine together.\nOur dinner done, and he not comming thither,\nI went to seeke him. In the street I met him,\nAnd in his companie that Gentleman.\nThere did this periur'd Goldsmith sweare me downe,\nThat I this day of him receiu'd the Chaine,\nWhich God he knowes, I saw not. For the which,\nHe did arrest me with an Officer.\nI did obey, and sent my Pesant home\nFor certaine Duckets: he with none return'd.\nThen fairely I bespoke the Officer\nTo go in person with me to my house.\nBy'th' way, we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more\nOf vilde Confederates: Along with them\nThey brought one Pinch, a hungry leane-fac'd Villaine;\nA meere Anatomie, a Mountebanke,\nA thred-bare Iugler, and a Fortune-teller,\nA needy-hollow-ey'd-sharpe-looking-wretch;\nA liuing dead man. This pernicious slaue,\nForsooth tooke on him as a Coniurer:\nAnd gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\nAnd with no-face (as 'twere) out-facing me,\nCries out, I was possest. Then altogether\nThey fell vpon me, bound me, bore me thence,\nAnd in a darke and dankish vault at home\nThere left me and my man, both bound together,\nTill gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\nI gain'd my freedome; and immediately\nRan hether to your Grace, whom I beseech\nTo giue me ample satisfaction\nFor these deepe shames, and great indignities.\n\nGold.\nMy Lord, in truth, thus far I witnes with him:\nThat he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.\n\nDuke.\nBut had he such a Chaine of thee, or no?\n\nGold.\nHe had my Lord, and when he ran in heere,\nThese people saw the Chaine about his necke.\n\nMar.\nBesides, I will be sworne these eares of mine,\nHeard you confesse you had the Chaine of him,\nAfter you first forswore it on the Mart,\nAnd thereupon I drew my sword on you:\nAnd then you fled into this Abbey heere,\nFrom whence I thinke you are come by Miracle.\n\nE.Ant.\nI neuer came within these Abbey wals,\nNor euer didst thou draw thy sword on me:\nI neuer saw the Chaine, so helpe me heauen:\nAnd this is false you burthen me withall.\n\nDuke.\nWhy what an intricate impeach is this?\nI thinke you all haue drunke of Circes cup:\nIf heere you hous'd him, heere he would haue bin.\nIf he were mad, he would not pleade so coldly:\nYou say he din'd at home, the Goldsmith heere\nDenies that saying. Sirra, what say you?\n\nE.Dro.\nSir he din'de with her there, at the Porpentine.\n\nCur.\nHe did, and from my finger snacht that Ring.\n\nE.Anti.\nTis true (my Liege) this Ring I had of her.\n\nDuke.\nSaw'st thou him enter at the Abbey heere?\n\nCurt.\nAs sure (my Liege) as I do see your Grace.\n\nDuke.\nWhy this is straunge: Go call the Abbesse hither.\nI thinke you are all mated, or starke mad.\n\nExit one to the Abbesse.\n\nFa.\nMost mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\nHaply I see a friend will saue my life,\nAnd pay the sum that may deliuer me.\n\nDuke.\nSpeake freely Siracusian what thou wilt.\n\nFath.\nIs not your name sir call'd Antipholus?\nAnd is not that your bondman Dromio?\n\nE.Dro.\nWithin this houre I was his bondman sir,\nBut he I thanke him gnaw'd in two my cords,\nNow am I Dromio, and his man, vnbound.\n\nFath.\nI am sure you both of you remember me.\n\nDro.\nOur selues we do remember sir by you:\nFor lately we were bound as you are now.\nYou are not Pinches patient, are you sir?\n\nFather.\nWhy looke you strange on me? you know me well.\n\nE.Ant.\nI neuer saw you in my life till now.\n\nFa.\nOh! griefe hath chang'd me since you saw me last,\nAnd carefull houres with times deformed hand,\nHaue written strange defeatures in my face:\nBut tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\n\nAnt.\nNeither.\n\nFat.\nDromio, nor thou?\n\nDro.\nNo trust me sir, nor I.\n\nFa.\nI am sure thou dost?\n\nE.Dromio.\nI sir, but I am sure I do not, and whatsoeuer a man denies, you are now bound to beleeue him.\n\nFath.\nNot know my voice, oh times extremity\nHast thou so crack'd and splitted my poore tongue\nIn seuen short yeares, that heere my onely sonne\nKnowes not my feeble key of vntun'd cares?\nThough now this grained face of mine be hid\nIn sap-consuming Winters drizled snow,\nAnd all the Conduits of my blood froze vp:\nYet hath my night of life some memorie:\nMy wasting lampes some fading glimmer left;\nMy dull deafe eares a little vse to heare:\nAll these old witnesses, I cannot erre.\nTell me, thou art my sonne Antipholus.\n\nAnt.\nI neuer saw my Father in my life.\n\nFa.\nBut seuen yeares since, in Siracusa boy\nThou know'st we parted, but perhaps my sonne,\nThou sham'st to acknowledge me in miserie.\n\nAnt.\nThe Duke, and all that know me in the City,\nCan witnesse with me that it is not so.\nI ne're saw Siracusa in my life.\n\nDuke.\nI tell thee Siracusian, twentie yeares\nHaue I bin Patron to Antipholus,\nDuring which time, he ne're saw Siracusa:\nI see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n\nEnter the Abbesse with Antipholus Siracusa, and Dromio Sir.\n\nAbbesse.\nMost mightie Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\nAll gather to see them.\n\nAdr.\nI see two husbands, or mine eyes deceiue me.\n\nDuke.\nOne of these men is genius to the other:\nAnd so of these, which is the naturall man,\nAnd which the spirit? Who deciphers them?\n\nS.Dromio.\nI Sir am Dromio, command him away.\n\nE.Dro.\nI Sir am Dromio, pray let me stay.\n\nS.Ant.\nEgeon art thou not? or else his ghost.\n\nS.Drom.\nOh my olde Master, who hath bound him heere?\n\nAbb.\nWho euer bound him, I will lose his bonds,\nAnd gaine a husband by his libertie:\nSpeake olde Egeon, if thou bee'st the man\nThat hadst a wife once call'd \u00c6milia,\nThat bore thee at a burthen two faire sonnes?\nOh if thou bee'st the same Egeon, speake:\nAnd speake vnto the same \u00c6milia.\n\nDuke.\nWhy heere begins his Morning storie right:\nThese twoAntipholus, these two so like,\nAnd these two Dromio's, one in semblance:\nBesides her vrging of her wracke at sea,\nThese are the parents to these children,\nWhich accidentally are met together.\n\nFa.\nIf I dreame not, thou art \u00c6milia,\nIf thou art she, tell me, where is that sonne\nThat floated with thee on the fatall rafte.\n\nAbb.\nBy men of Epidamium, he, and I,\nAnd the twin Dromio, all were taken vp;\nBut by and by, rude Fishermen of Corinth\nBy force tooke Dromio, and my sonne from them,\nAnd me they left with those of Epidamium.\nWhat then became of them, I cannot tell:\nI, to this fortune that you see mee in.\n\nDuke.\nAntipholus thou cam'st from Corinth first.\n\nS.Ant.\nNo sir, not I, I came from Siracuse.\n\nDuke.\nStay, stand apart, I know not which is which.\n\nE.Ant.\nI came from Corinth my most gracious Lord\n\nE.Dro.\nAnd I with him.\n\nE.Ant.\nBrought to this Town by that most famous Warriour,\nDuke Menaphon your most renowned Vnckle.\n\nAdr.\nWhich of you two did dine with me to day?\n\nS.Ant.\nI, gentle Mistris.\n\nAdr. And are not you my husband?\n\nE.Ant.\nNo, I say nay to that.\n\nS.Ant.\nAnd so do I, yet did she call me so:\nAnd this faire Gentlewoman her sister heere\nDid call me brother. What I told you then,\nI hope I shall haue leisure to make good,\nIf this be not a dreame I see and heare.\n\nGoldsmith.\nThat is the Chaine sir, which you had of mee.\n\nS.Ant.\nI thinke it be sir, I denie it not.\n\nE.Ant.\nAnd you sir for this Chaine arrested me.\n\nGold.\nI thinke I did sir, I deny it not.\n\nAdr.\nI sent you monie sir to be your baile\nBy Dromio, but I thinke he brought it not.\n\nE.Dro.\nNo, none by me.\n\nS.Ant.\nThis purse of Duckets I receiu'd from you,\nAnd Dromio my man did bring them me:\nI see we still did meete each others man,\nAnd I was tane for him, and he for me,\nAnd thereupon these errors are arose.\n\nE.Ant.\nThese Duckets pawne I for my father heere.\n\nDuke.\nIt shall not neede, thy father hath his life.\n\nCur.\nSir I must haue that Diamond from you.\n\nE.Ant.\nThere take it, and much thanks for my good cheere.\n\nAbb.\nRenowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the paines\nTo go with vs into the Abbey heere,\nAnd heare at large discoursed all our fortunes,\nAnd all that are assembled in this place:\nThat by this simpathized one daies error\nHaue suffer'd wrong. Goe, keepe vs companie,\n\nAnd we shall make full satisfaction.\nThirtie three yeares haue I but gone in trauaile\nOf you my sonnes, and till this present houre\nMy heauie burthen are deliuered:\nThe Duke my husband, and my children both,\nAnd you the Kalenders of their Natiuity,\nGo to a Gossips feast, and go with mee,\nAfter so long greefe such Natiuitie.\n\nDuke.\nWith all my heart, Ile Gossip at this feast.\n\nExeunt omnes. Manet the two Dromio's and two Brothers.\n\nS.Dro.\nMast. shall I fetch your stuffe from shipbord?\n\nE.An.\nDromio, what stuffe of mine hast thou imbarkt\n\nS.Dro.\nYour goods that lay at host sir in the Centaur.\n\nS.Ant.\nHe speakes to me, I am your master Dromio.\nCome go with vs, wee'l looke to that anon,\nEmbrace thy brother there, reioyce with him. Exit\n\nS.Dro.\nThere is a fat friend at your masters house,\nThat kitchin'd me for you to day at dinner:\nShe now shall be my sister, not my wife,\n\nE.D.\nMe thinks you are my glasse, & not my brother:\nI see by you, I am a sweet-fac'd youth,\nWill you walke in to see their gossipping?\n\nS.Dro.\nNot I sir, you are my elder.\n\nE.Dro.\nThat's a question, how shall we trie it.\n\nS.Dro.\nWee'l draw Cuts for the Signior, till then, lead thou first.\n\nE.Dro.\nNay then thus:\nWe came into the world like brother and brother:\nAnd now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. Exeunt.\n\nFINIS.\n\n"}, {"category": "shakespeare", "text": "\n\nThe Comedie of Errors.\n\nActus primus, Scena prima.\n\nEnter the Duke of Ephesus, with the Merchant of Siracusa, Iaylor, and other attendants.\n\n\u2060Marchant.\nBRoceed Solinus to procure my fall,\nAnd by the doome of death end woes and all.\nDuke. Merchant of Siracusa, plead no more.\nI am not partiall to infringe our Lawes;\nThe enmity and discord which of late\nSprung from the rancorous outrage of your Duke,\nTo Merchants our well-dealing Countrimen,\nWho wanting gilders to redeeme their liues,\nHaue seal'd his rigorous statutes with their blouds,\nExcludes all pitty from our threatning lookes:\nFor since the mortall and intestine iarres\nTwixt thy seditious Countrimen and vs,\nIt hath in solemne Synodes beene decreed,\nBoth by the Siracusians and our selues,\nTo admit no trafficke to our aduerse townes:\nNay more, if any borne at Ephesus\nBe seene at any Siracusian Marts and Fayres:\nAgaine, if any Siracusian borne\nCome to the Bay of Ephesus, he dies:\nHis goods confiscate to the Dukes dispose,\nVnlesse a thousand markes be leuied\nTo quit the penalty, and to ransome him:\nThy substance, valued at the highest rate,\nCannot amount vnto a hundred Markes,\nTherefore by Law thou art condemn'd to die.\n\nMer.\nYet this my comfort, when your words are done,\nMy woes end likewise with the euening Sonne.\n\nDuk.\nWell Siracusian; say in briefe the cause\nWhy thou departedst from thy natiue home?\nAnd for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.\n\nMer.\nA heauier taske could not haue beene impos'd,\nThen I to speake my griefes vnspeakeable:\nYet that the world may witnesse that my end\nWas wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\nIle vtter what my sorrow giues me leaue.\nIn Syracusa was I borne, and wedde\nVnto a woman, happy but for me,\nAnd by me; had not our hap beene bad:\nWith her I liu'd in ioy, our wealth increast\nBy prosperous voyages I often made\nTo Epidamium, till my factors death,\nAnd he great care of goods at randone left,\nDrew me from kinde embracements of my spouse;\nFrom whom my absence was not sixe moneths olde,\nBefore her selfe (almost at fainting vnder\nThe pleasing punishment that women beare)\nHad made prouision for her following me,\nAnd soone, and safe, arriued where I was:\nThere had she not beene long, but she became\nA ioyfull mother of two goodly sonnes:\nAnd, which was strange, the one so like the other,\nAs could not be distinguish'd but by names.\nThat very howre, and in the selfe-same Inne,\nA meane woman was deliuered\nOf such a burthen Male, twins both alike:\nThose, for their parents were exceeding poore,\nI bought, and brought vp to attend my sonnes.\nMy wife, not meanely prowd of two such boyes,\nMade daily motions for our home returne:\nVnwilling I agreed, alas, too soone wee came aboord.\nA league from Epidamium had we saild\nBefore the alwaies winde-obeying deepe\nGaue any Tragicke Instance of our harme:\nBut longer did we not retaine much hope;\nFor what obscured light the heauens did grant,\nDid but conuay vnto our fearefull mindes\nA doubtfull warrant of immediate death,\nWhich though my selfe would gladly haue imbrac'd,\nYet the incessant weepings of my wife,\nWeeping before for what she saw must come,\nAnd pitteous playnings of the prettie babes\nThat mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to feare,\nForst me to seeke delayes for them and me,\nAnd this it was: (for other meanes was none)\nThe Sailors sought for safety by our boate,\nAnd left the ship then sinking ripe to vs.\nMy wife, more carefull for the latter borne,\nHad fastned him vnto a small spare Mast,\nSuch as sea-faring men prouide for stormes:\nTo him one of the other twins was bound,\nWhil'st I had beene like heedfull of the other.\nThe children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,\nFixing our eyes on whom our care was fixt,\nFastned our selues at eyther end the mast,\nAnd floating straight, obedient to the streame,\nWas carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\nAt length the sonne gazing vpon the earth,\nDisperst those vapours that offended vs,\nAnd by the benefit of his wished light\nThe seas waxt calme, and we discouered\nTwo shippes from farre, making amaine to vs:\nOf Corinth that, of Epidarus this,\nBut ere they came, oh let me say no more,\nGather the sequell by that went before.\n\nDuk.\nNay forward old man, doe not breake off so,\n\nFor we may pitty, though not pardon thee.\n\nMerch.\nOh had the gods done so, I had not now\nWorthily tearm'd them mercilesse to vs:\nFor ere the ships could meet by twice fiue leagues,\nWe were encountred by a mighty rocke,\nWhich being violently borne vp,\nOur helpefull ship was splitted in the midst;\nSo that in this vniust diuorce of vs,\nFortune had left to both of vs alike,\nWhat to delight in, what to sorrow for,\nHer part, poore soule, seeming as burdened\nWith lesser waight, but not with lesser woe,\nWas carried with more speed before the winde,\nAnd in our sight they three were taken vp\nBy Fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\nAt length another ship had seiz'd on vs,\nAnd knowing whom it was their hap to saue,\nGaue healthfull welcome to their ship-wrackt guests,\nAnd would haue reft the Fishers of their prey,\nHad not their backe beene very slow of saile;\nAnd therefore homeward did they bend their course.\nThus haue you heard me seuer'd from my blisse,\nThat by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\nTo tell sad stories of my owne mishaps.\n\nDuke.\nAnd for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\nDoe me the fauour to dilate at full,\nWhat haue befalne of them and they till now.\n\nMerch.\nMy yongest boy, and yet my eldest care,\nAt eighteene yeeres became inquisitiue\nAfter his brother; and importun'd me\nThat his attendant, so his case was like,\nReft of his brother, but retain'd his name,\nMight beare him company in the quest of him:\nWhom whil'st I laboured of a loue to see,\nI hazarded the losse of whom I lou'd.\nFiue Sommers haue I spent in farthest Greece,\nRoming cleane through the bounds of Asia,\nAnd coasting homeward, came to Ephesus:\nHopelesse to finde, yet loth to leaue vnsought\nOr that, or any place that harbours men:\nBut heere must end the story of my life,\nAnd happy were I in my timelie death,\nCould all my trauells warrant me they liue.\n\nDuke.\nHaplesse Egeon whom the fates haue markt\nTo beare the extremitie of dire mishap:\nNow trust me, were it not against our Lawes,\nAgainst my Crowne, my oath, my dignity,\nWhich Princes would they may not disanull,\nMy soule should sue as aduocate for thee:\nBut though thou art adiudged to the death,\nAnd passed sentence may not be recal'd\nBut to our honours great disparagement:\nYet will I fauour thee in what I can;\nTherefore Marchant, Ile limit thee this day\nTo seeke thy helpe by beneficiall helpe,\nTry all the friends thou hast in Ephesus,\nBeg thou, or borrow, to make vp the summe,\nAnd liue: if no, then thou art doom'd to die:\nIaylor, take him to thy custodie.\n\nIaylor.\nI will my Lord.\n\nMerch. Hopelesse and helpelesse doth Egean wend,\nBut to procrastinate his liuelesse end. Exeunt.\n\nEnter Antipholis Erotes, a Marchant, and Dromio.\nMer.\n\nTherefore giue out you are of Epidamium,\nLest that your goods too soone be confiscate:\nThis very day a Syracusian Marchant\nIs apprehended for a riuall here,\nAnd not being able to buy out his life,\nAccording to the statute of the towne,\nDies ere the wearie sunne set in the West:\nThere is your monie that I had to keepe.\n\nAnt. Goe beare it to the Centaure, where we host,\nAnd stay there Dromio, till I come to thee;\nWithin this houre it will be dinner time,\nTill that Ile view the manners of the towne,\nPeruse the traders, gaze vpon the buildings,\nAnd then returne and sleepe within mine Inne,\nFor with long trauaile I am stiffe and wearie.\nGet thee away.\n\nDro.\nMany a man would take you at your word,\nAnd goe indeede, hauing so good a meane. Exit Dromio.\n\nAnt.\nA trustie villaine sir, that very oft,\nWhen I am dull with care and melancholly,\nLightens my humour with his merry iests:\nWhat will you walke with me about the towne,\nAnd then goe to my Inne and dine with me?\n\nE.Mar.\nI am inuited sir to certaine Marchants,\nOf whom I hope to make much benefit:\nI craue your pardon, soone at fiue a clocke,\nPlease you, Ile meete with you vpon the Mart,\nAnd afterward consort you till bed time:\nMy present businesse cals me from you now.\n\nAnt.\nFarewell till then: I will goe loose my selfe,\nAnd wander vp and downe to view the Citie.\n\nE.Mar.\nSir, I commend you to your owne content. Exeunt.\n\nAnt.\nHe that commends me to mine owne content,\nCommends me to the thing I cannot get:\nI to the world am like a drop of water,\nThat in the Ocean seekes another drop,\nWho falling there to finde his fellow forth,\n(Vnseene, inquisitiue) confounds himselfe.\nSo I, to finde a Mother and a Brother,\nIn quest of them (vnhappie a) loose my selfe.\n\nEnter Dromio of Ephesus.\nHere comes the almanacke of my true date:\n\nWhat now? How chance thou art return'd so soone.\n\nE.Dro.\nReturn'd so soone, rather approacht too late:\nThe Capon burnes, the Pig fals from the spit;\nThe clocke hath strucken twelue vpon the bell:\nMy Mistris made it one vpon my cheeke:\nShe is so hot because the meate is colde:\nThe meate is colde, because you come not home:\nYou come not home, because you haue no stomacke:\nYou haue no stomacke, hauing broke your fast:\nBut we that know what 'tis to fast and pray,\nAre penitent for your default to day.\n\nAnt.\nStop in your winde sir, tell me this I pray?\nWhere haue you left the mony that I gaue you.\n\nE.Dro.\nOh sixe pence that I had a wensday last,\nTo pay the Sadler for my Mistris crupper:\nThe Sadler had it Sir, I kept it not.\n\nAnt.\nI am not in a sportiue humor now:\nTell me, and dally not, where is the monie?\nWe being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust\nSo great a charge from thine owne custodie.\n\nE.Dro.\nI pray you iest sir as you sit at dinner:\nI from my Mistris come to you in post:\nIf I returne I shall be post indeede.\n\nFor she will scoure your fault vpon my pate:\nMe thinkes your maw, like mine, should be your cooke,\nAnd strike you home without a messenger.\n\nAnt.\nCome Dromio, come, these iests are out of season,\nReserue them till a merrier houre then this:\nWhere is the gold I gaue in charge to thee?\n\nE.Dro.\nTo me sir? why you gaue no gold to me?\n\nAnt.\nCome on sir knaue, haue done your foolishnes,\nAnd tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.\n\nE.Dro.\nMy charge was but to fetch you from the Mart\nHome to your house, the Ph\u0153nix sir, to dinner;\nMy Mistris and her sister staies for you.\n\nAnt.\nNow as I am a Christian answer me,\nIn what safe place you haue bestow'd my monie;\nOr I shall breake that merrie sconce of yours\nThat stands on tricks, when I am vndispos'd:\nWhere is the thousand Markes thou hadst of me?\n\nE.Dro.\nI haue some markes of yours vpon my pate:\nSome of my Mistris markes vpon my shoulders:\nBut not a thousand markes betweene you both.\nIf I should pay your worship those againe,\nPerchance you will not beare them patiently.\n\nAnt.\nThy Mistris markes? what Mistris slaue hast thou?\n\nE.Dro.\nYour worships wife, my Mistris at the Ph\u0153nix;\nShe that doth fast till you come home to dinner:\nAnd praies that you will hie you home to dinner.\n\nAnt.\nWhat wilt thou flout me thus vnto my face\nBeing forbid? There take you that sir knaue.\n\nE.Dro.\nWhat meane you sir, for God sake hold your hands:\nNay, and you will not sir, Ile take my heeles.\n\nExeunt Dromio Ep.\nAnt.\n\nVpon my life by some deuise or other,\nThe villaine is ore-wrought of all my monie.\nThey say this towne is full of cosenage:\nAs nimble Iuglers that deceiue the eie:\nDarke working Sorcerers that change the minde:\nSoule-killing Witches, that deforme the bodie:\nDisguised Cheaters, prating Mountebankes;\nAnd manie such like liberties of sinne:\nIf it proue so, I will be gone the sooner:\nIle to the Centaur to goe seeke this slaue,\nI greatly feare my monie is not safe. \n"}, {"category": "shakespeare", "text": "\n\nActus Quartus. Sc\u00e6na Prima.\n\nEnter a Merchant, Goldsmith, and an Officer.\n\nMar.\nYou know since Pentecost the sum is due,\nAnd since I haue not much importun'd you,\nNor now I had not, but that I am bound\nTo Persia, and want Gilders for my voyage:\nTherefore make present satisfaction,\nOr Ile attach you by this Officer.\n\nGold.\nEuen iust the sum that I do owe to you,\nIs growing to me by Antipholus,\nAnd in the instant that I met with you,\nHe had of me a Chaine, at fiue a clocke\nI shall receiue the money for the same:\nPleaseth you walke with me downe to his house,\nI will discharge my bond, and thanke you too.\n\nEnter Antipholus Ephes.Dromio from the Courtizans.\nOffi.\n\nThat labour may you saue: See where he comes.\n\nAnt.\nWhile I go to the Goldsmiths house, go thou\n\nAnd buy a ropes end, that will I bestow\nAmong my wife, and their confederates,\nFor locking me out of my doores by day:\nBut soft I see the Goldsmith; get thee gone,\nBuy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.\n\nDro.\nI buy a thousand pound a yeare, I buy a rope. Exit Dromio\n\nEph.Ant.\nA man is well holpe vp that trusts to you,\nI promised your presence, and the Chaine,\nBut neither Chaine nor Goldsmith came to me:\nBelike you thought our loue would last too long\nIf it were chain'd together: and therefore came not.\n\nGold.\nSauing your merrie humor: here's the note\nHow much your Chaine weighs to the vtmost charect,\nThe finenesse of the Gold, and chargefull fashion,\nWhich doth amount to three odde Duckets more\nThen I stand debted to this Gentleman,\nI pray you see him presently discharg'd,\nFor he is bound to Sea, and stayes but for it.\n\nAnti.\nI am not furnish'd with the present monie:\nBesides I haue some businesse in the towne,\nGood Signior take the stranger to my house,\nAnd with you take the Chaine, and bid my wife\nDisburse the summe, on the receit thereof,\nPerchance I will be there as soone as you.\n\nGold.\nThen you will bring the Chaine to her your selfe.\n\nAnti.\nNo beare it with you, least I come not time enough.\n\nGold.\nWell sir, I will? Haue you the Chaine about you?\n\nAnt.\nAnd if I haue not sir, I hope you haue:\nOr else you may returne without your money.\n\nGold.\nNay come I pray you sir, giue me the Chaine:\nBoth winde and tide stayes for this Gentleman,\nAnd I too blame haue held him heere too long.\n\nAnti.\nGood Lord, you vse this dalliance to excuse\nYour breach of promise to the Porpentine,\nI should haue chid you for not bringing it,\nBut like a shrew you first begin to brawle.\n\nMar.\nThe houre steales on, I pray you sir dispatch.\n\nGold.\nYou heare how he importunes me, the Chaine.\n\nAnt.\nWhy giue it to my wife, and fetch your mony.\n\nGold.\nCome, come, you know I gaue it you euen now.\nEither send the Chaine, or send me by some token.\n\nAnt.\nFie, now you run this humor out of breath,\nCome where's the Chaine, I pray you let me see it.\n\nMar.\nMy businesse cannot brooke this dalliance,\nGood sir say, whe'r you'l answer me, or no:\nIf not, Ile leaue him to the Officer.\n\nAnt.\nI answer you? What should I answer you.\n\nGold.\nThe monie that you owe me for the Chaine.\n\nAnt.\nI owe you none, till I receiue the Chaine.\n\nGold.\nYou know I gaue it you halfe an houre since.\n\nAnt.\nYou gaue me none, you wrong mee much to say so.\n\nGold.\nYou wrong me more sir in denying it.\nConsider how it stands vpon my credit.\n\nMar.\nWell Officer, arrest him at my suite.\n\nOffi.\nI do, and charge you in the Dukes name to obey me.\n\nGold.\nThis touches me in reputation.\nEither consent to pay this sum for me,\nOr I attach you by this Officer.\n\nAnt.\nConsent to pay thee that I neuer had:\nArrest me foolish fellow if thou dar'st.\n\nGold.\nHeere is thy fee, arrest him Officer.\nI would not spare my brother in this case,\nIf he should scorne me so apparantly.\n\nOffic.\nI do arrest you sir, you heare the suite.\n\nAnt.\nI do obey thee, till I giue thee baile.\nBut sirrah, you shall buy this sport as deere,\nAs all the mettall in your shop will answer.\n\nGold.\nSir, sir, I shall haue Law in Ephesus,\nTo your notorious shame, I doubt it not.\n\nEnter Dromio Sira. from the Bay.\nDro.\n\nMaster, there's a Barke of Epidamium,\nThat staies but till her Owner comes aboord,\nAnd then sir she beares away. Our fraughtage sir,\nI haue conuei'd aboord, and I haue bought\nThe Oyle, the Balsamum, and Aqua-vit\u00e6.\nThe ship is in her trim, the merrie winde\nBlowes faire from land: they stay for nought at all,\nBut for their Owner, Master, and your selfe.\n\nAn.\nHow now? a Madman? Why thou peeuish sheep\nWhat ship of Epidamium staies for me.\n\nS.Dro.\nA ship you sent me too, to hier waftage.\n\nAnt.\nThou drunken slaue, I sent thee for a rope,\nAnd told thee to what purpose, and what end.\n\nS.Dro.\nYou sent me for a ropes end as soone,\nYou sent me to the Bay sir, for a Barke.\n\nAnt.\nI will debate this matter at more leisure\nAnd teach your eares to list me with more heede:\nTo Adriana Villaine hie thee straight:\nGiue her this key, and tell her in the Deske\nThat's couer'd o're with Turkish Tapistrie,\nThere is a purse of Duckets, let her send it:\nTell her, I am arrested in the streete,\nAnd that shall baile me: hie thee slaue, be gone,\nOn Officer to prison, till it come. Exeunt\n\nS.Dromio.\nTo Adriana, that is where we din'd,\nWhere Dowsabell did claime me for her husband,\nShe is too bigge I hope for me to compasse,\nThither I must, although against my will:\nFor seruants must their Masters mindes fulfill. Exit\n\nEnter Adriana and Luciana.\nAdr.\n\nAh Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\nMight'st thou perceiue austeerely in his eie,\nThat he did plead in earnest, yea or no:\nLook'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\nWhat obseruation mad'st thou in this case?\nOh, his hearts Meteors tilting in his face.\n\nLuc.\nFirst he deni'de you had in him no right.\n\nAdr.\nHe meant he did me none: the more my spight\n\nLuc.\nThen swore he that he was a stranger heere.\n\nAdr.\nAnd true he swore, though yet forsworne hee were.\n\nLuc.\nThen pleaded I for you.\n\nAdr.\nAnd what said he?\n\nLuc.\nThat loue I begg'd for you, he begg'd of me.\n\nAdr.\nWith what perswasion did he tempt thy loue?\n\nLuc.\nWith words, that in an honest suit might moue.\nFirst, he did praise my beautie, then my speech.\n\nAdr.\nDid'st speake him faire?\n\nLuc.\nHaue patience I beseech.\n\nAdr.\nI cannot, nor I will not hold me still.\nMy tongue, though not my heart, shall haue his will.\nHe is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,\nIll-fac'd, worse bodied, shapelesse euery where:\nVicious, vngentle, foolish, blunt, vnkinde,\n\nStigmaticall in making worse in minde.\n\nLuc.\nWho would be iealous then of such a one?\nNo euill lost is wail'd, when it is gone.\n\nAdr.\nAh but I thinke him better then I say:\nAnd yet would herein others eies were worse:\nFarre from her nest the Lapwing cries away;\nMy heart praies for him, though my tongue doe curse.\n\nEnter S.Dromio.\nDro.\n\nHere goe: the deske, the purse, sweet now make haste.\n\nLuc.\nHow hast thou lost thy breath?\n\nS.Dro.\nBy running fast.\n\nAdr.\nWhere is thy Master Dromio? Is he well?\n\nS.Dro.\nNo, he's in Tartar limbo, worse then hell:\nA diuell in an euerlasting garment hath him;\nOn whose hard heart is button'd vp with steele:\nA Feind, a Fairie, pittilesse and ruffe:\nA Wolfe, nay worse, a fellow all in buffe:\nA back friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermads\nThe passages of allies, creekes, and narrow lands:\nA hound that runs Counter, and yet draws drifoot well,\nOne that before the Iudgment carries poore soules to hel.\n\nAdr.\nWhy man, what is the matter?\n\nS.Dro.\nI doe not know the matter, hee is rested on the case.\n\nAdr.\nWhat is he arrested? tell me at whose suite?\n\nS.Dro.\nI know not at whose suite he is arested well; but is in a suite of buffe which rested him, that can I tell, will you send him Mistris redemption, the monie in his deske.\n\nAdr.\nGo fetch it Sister: this I wonder at. Exit Luciana.\nThus he vnknowne to me should be in debt:\nTell me, was he arested on a band?\n\nS.Dro.\nNot on a band, but on a stronger thing:\nA chaine, a chaine, doe you not here it ring.\n\nAdria.\nWhat, the chaine?\n\nS.Dro.\nNo, no, the bell, 'tis time that I were gone:\nIt was two ere I left him, and now the clocke strikes one.\n\nAdr.\nThe houres come backe, that did I neuer here.\n\nS.Dro.\nOh yes, if any houre meete a Serieant, a turnes backe for verie feare.\n\nAdri.\nAs if time were in debt: how fondly do'st thou reason?\n\nS.Dro.\nTime is a verie bankerout, and owes more then he's worth to season.\nNay, he's a theefe too: haue you not heard men say,\nThat time comes stealing on by night and day?\nIf I be in debt and theft, and a Serieant in the way,\nHath he not reason to turne backe an houre in a day?\n\nEnter Luciana.\nAdr.\n\nGo Dromio, there's the monie, beare it straight,\nAnd bring thy Master home imediately.\nCome sister, I am prest downe with conceit:\nConceit, my comfort and my iniurie. Exit.\n\nEnter Antipholus Siracusia.\nThere's not a man I meete but doth salute me\n\nAs if I were their well acquainted friend,\nAnd euerie one doth call me by my name:\nSome tender monie to me, some inuite me;\nSome other giue me thankes for kindnesses;\nSome offer me Commodities to buy.\nEuen now a tailor cal'd me in his shop,\nAnd show'd me Silkes that he had bought for me,\nAnd therewithall tooke measure of my body.\nSure these are but imaginarie wiles,\nAnd lapland Sorcerers inhabite here.\n\nEnter Dromio. Sir.\nS.Dro.\n\nMaster, here's the gold you sent me for: what haue you got the picture of old Adam new apparel'd?\n\nAnt.\nWhat gold is this? What Adam do'st thou meane?\n\nS.Dro.\nNot that Adam that kept the Paradise: but that Adam that keepes the prison; hee that goes in the calues-skin, that was kil'd for the Prodigall: hee that came behinde you sir, like an euill angel, and bid you forsake your libertie.\n\nAnt.\nI vnderstand thee not.\n\nS.Dro.\nNo? why 'tis a plaine case: he that went like a Base-Viole in a case of leather; the man sir, that when gentlemen are tired giues them a sob, and rests them: he sir, that takes pittie on decaied men, and giues them suites of durance: he that sets vp his rest to doe more exploits with his Mace, then a Moris Pike.\n\nAnt.\nWhat thou mean'st an officer?\n\nS.Dro.\nI sir, the Serieant of the Band: he that brings any man to answer it that breakes his Band: one that thinkes a man alwaies going to bed, and saies, God giue you good rest.\n\nAnt.\nWell sir, there rest in your foolerie:\nIs there any ships puts forth to night? may we be gone?\n\nS.Dro.\nWhy sir, I brought you word an houre since, that the Barke Expedition put forth to night, and then were you hindred by the Serieant to tarry for the Hoy Delay: Here are the angels that you sent for to deliuer you.\n\nAnt.\nThe fellow is distract, and so am I,\nAnd here we wander in illusions:\nSome blessed power deliuer vs from hence.\n\nEnter a Curtizan.\nCur.\n\nWell met, well met, Master Antipholus:\nI see sir you haue found the Gold-smith now:\nIs that the chaine you promis'd me to day.\n\nAnt.\nSathan auoide, I charge thee tempt me not.\n\nS.Dro.\nMaster, is this Mistris Sathan?\n\nAnt.\nIt is the diuell.\n\nS.Dro.\nNay, she is worse, she is the diuels dam: And here she comes in the habit of a light wench, and thereof comes, that the wenches say God dam me, That's as much to say, God make me a light wench: It is written, they appeare to men like angels of light, light is an effect of fire, and fire will burne: ergo, light wenches will burne, come not neere her.\n\nCur.\nYour man and you are maruailous merrie sir.\nWill you goe with me, wee'll mend our dinner here?\n\nS.Dro.\nMaster, if do expect spoon-meate, or bespeake a long spoone.\n\nAnt.\nWhy Dromio?\n\nS.Dro.\nMarrie he must haue a long spoone that must eate with the diuell.\n\nAnt.\nAuoid then fiend, what tel'st thou me of supping?\nThou art, as you are all a sorceresse:\nI coniure thee to leaue me, and be gon.\n\nCur.\nGiue me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\nOr for my Diamond the Chaine you promis'd,\nAnd Ile be gone sir, and not trouble you.\n\nS.Dro. Some diuels aske but the parings of ones naile,\n\na rush, a haire, a drop of blood, a pin, a nut, a cherrie-stone: but she more couetous, wold haue a chaine: Master be wise, and if you giue it her, the diuell will shake her Chaine, and fright vs with it.\n\nCur.\nI pray you sir my Ring, or else the Chaine,\nI hope you do not meane to cheate me so?\n\nAnt.\nAuant thou witch: Come Dromio let vs go.\n\nS.Dro.\nFlie pride saies the Pea-cocke, Mistris that you know. Exit.\n\nCur.\nNow out of doubt Antipholus is mad,\nElse would he neuer so demeane himselfe,\nA Ring he hath of mine worth fortie Duckets,\nAnd for the same he promis'd me a Chaine,\nBoth one and other he denies me now:\nThe reason that I gather he is mad,\nBesides this present instance of his rage,\nIs a mad tale he told to day at dinner,\nOf his owne doores being shut against his entrance.\nBelike his wife acquainted with his fits,\nOn purpose shut the doores against his way:\nMy way is now to hie home to his house,\nAnd tell his wife, that being Lunaticke,\nHe rush'd into my house, and tooke perforce\nMy Ring away. This course I fittest choose,\nFor fortie Duckets is too much to loose.\n\nEnter Antipholus Ephes. with a Iailor.\n\nAn.\nFeare me not man, I will not breake away,\nIle giue thee ere I leaue thee so much money\nTo warrant thee as I am rested for.\nMy wife is in a wayward moode to day,\nAnd will not lightly trust the Messenger,\nThat I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\nI tell you 'twill sound harshly in her eares.\n\nEnter Dromio Eph. with a ropes end.\nHeere comes my Man, I thinke he brings the monie.\n\nHow now sir? Haue you that I sent you for?\n\nE.Dro.\nHere's that I warrant you will pay them all.\n\nAnti.\nBut where's the Money?\n\nE.Dro.\nWhy sir, I gaue the Monie for the Rope.\n\nAnt.\nFiue hundred Duckets villaine for a rope?\n\nE.Dro.\nIle serue you sir fiue hundred at the rate.\n\nAnt.\nTo what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\n\nE.Dro.\nTo a ropes end sir, and to that end am I re-turn'd.\n\nAnt.\nAnd to that end sir, I will welcome you.\n\nOffi.\nGood sir be patient.\n\nE.Dro.\nNay 'tis for me to be patient, I am in aduersitie.\n\nOffi.\nGood now hold thy tongue.\n\nE.Dro.\nNay, rather perswade him to hold his hands.\n\nAnti.\nThou whoreson senselesse Villaine.\n\nE.Dro.\nI would I were senselesse sir, that I might not feele your blowes.\n\nAnti.\nThou art sensible in nothing but blowes, and so is an Asse.\n\nE.Dro.\nI am an Asse indeede, you may prooue it by my long eares. I haue serued him from the houre of my Natiuitie to this instant, and haue nothing at his hands for my seruice but blowes. When I am cold, he heates me with beating: when I am warme, he cooles me with beating: I am wak'd with it when I sleepe, rais'd with it when I sit, driuen out of doores with it when I goe from home, welcom'd home with it when I returne, nay I beare it on my shoulders, as a begger woont her brat: and I thinke when he hath lam'd me, I shall begge with it from doore to doore.\n\nEnter Adriana, Luciana, Courtizan, and a Schoolemaster, call'd Pinch.\n\nAnt.\nCome goe along, my wife is comming yonder.\n\nE.Dro.\nMistris respice finem, respect your end, or rather the prophesie like the Parrat, beware the ropes end.\n\nAnti.\nWilt thou still talke? Beats Dro.\n\nCurt.\nHow say you now? Is not your husband mad?\n\nAdri.\nHis inciuility confirmes no lesse:\nGood Doctor Pinch, you are a Coniurer,\nEstablish him in his true sence againe,\nAnd I will please you what you will demand.\n\nLuc.\nAlas how fiery, and how sharpe he lookes.\n\nCur.\nMarke, how he trembles in his extasie.\n\nPinch.\nGiue me your hand, and let mee feele your pulse.\n\nAnt.\nThere is my hand, and let it feele your eare.\n\nPinch.\nI charge thee Sathan, hous'd within this man,\nTo yeeld possession to my holie praiers,\nAnd to thy state of darknesse hie thee straight,\nI coniure thee by all the Saints in heauen.\n\nAnti.\nPeace doting wizard, peace; I am not mad.\n\nAdr.\nOh that thou wer't not, poore distressed soule.\n\nAnti.\nYou Minion you, are these your Customers?\nDid this Companion with the saffron face\nReuell and feast it at my house to day,\nWhil'st vpon me the guiltie doores were shut,\nAnd I denied to enter in my house.\n\nAdr.\nO husband, God doth know you din'd at home\nWhere would you had remain'd vntill this time,\nFree from these slanders, and this open shame.\n\nAnti.\nDin'd at home? Thou Villaine, what sayest thou?\n\nDro.\nSir sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\n\nAnt.\nWere not my doores lockt vp, and I shut out?\n\nDro.\nPerdie, your doores were lockt, and you shut out.\n\nAnti.\nAnd did not she her selfe reuile me there?\n\nDro.\nSans Fable, she her selfe reuil'd you there.\n\nAnti.\nDid not her Kitchen maide raile, taunt, and scorne me?\n\nDro.\nCertis she did, the kitchin vestall scorn'd you.\n\nAnt.\nAnd did not I in rage depart from thence?\n\nDro.\nIn veritie you did, my bones beares witnesse,\nThat since haue felt the vigor of his rage.\n\nAdr.\nIs't good to sooth him in these contraries?\n\nPinch.\nIt is no shame, the fellow finds his vaine,\nAnd yeelding to him, humors well his frensie.\n\nAnt.\nThou hast subborn'd the Goldsmith to arrest mee.\n\nAdr.\nAlas, I sent you Monie to redeeme you,\nBy Dromio heere, who came in hast for it.\n\nDro.\nMonie by me? Heart and good will you might,\nBut surely Master not a ragge of Monie.\n\nAnt.\nWentst not thou to her for a purse of Duckets.\n\nAdri.\nHe came to me, and I deliuer'd it.\n\nLuci.\nAnd I am witnesse with her that she did:\n\nDro.\nGod and the Rope-maker beare me witnesse,\nThat I was sent for nothing but a rope.\n\nPinch.\nMistris, both Man and Master is possest,\nI know it by their pale and deadly lookes,\n\nThey must be bound and laide in some darke roome.\n\nAnt.\nSay wherefore didst thou locke me forth to day,\nAnd why dost thou denie the bagge of gold?\n\nAdr.\nI did not gentle husband locke thee forth.\n\nDro.\nAnd gentle Mr I receiu'd no gold:\nBut I confesse sir, that we were lock'd out.\n\nAdr.\nDissembling Villain, thou speak'st false in both\n\nAnt.\nDissembling harlot, thou art false in all,\nAnd art confederate with a damned packe,\nTo make a loathsome abiect scorne of me:\nBut with these nailes, Ile plucke out these false eyes,\nThat would behold in me this shamefull sport.\n\nEnter three or foure, and offer to binde him: Hee striues.\nAdr.\n\nOh binde him, binde him, let him not come neere me.\n\nPinch.\nMore company, the fiend is strong within him\n\nLuc.\nAye me poore man, how pale and wan he looks.\n\nAnt.\nWhat will you murther me, thou Iailor thou?\nI am thy prisoner, wilt thou suffer them to make a rescue?\n\nOffi.\nMasters let him go: he is my prisoner, and you shall not haue him.\n\nPinch.\nGo binde this man, for he is franticke too.\n\nAdr.\nWhat wilt thou do, thou peeuish Officer?\nHast thou delight to see a wretched man\nDo outrage and displeasure to himselfe?\n\nOffi.\nHe is my prisoner, if I let him go,\nThe debt he owes will be requir'd of me.\n\nAdr.\nI will discharge thee ere I go from thee,\nBeare me forthwith vnto his Creditor,\nAnd knowing how the debt growes I will pay it.\nGood Master Doctor see him safe conuey'd\nHome to my house, oh most vnhappy day.\n\nAnt.\nOh most vnhappie strumpet.\n\nDro.\nMaster, I am heere entred in bond for you.\n\nAnt.\nOut on thee Villaine, wherefore dost thou mad mee?\n\nDro.\nWill you be bound for nothing, be mad good Master, cry the diuell.\n\nLuc.\nGod helpe poore soules, how idlely doe they talke.\n\nAdr.\nGo beare him hence, sister go you with me:\nSay now, whose suite is he arrested at? Exeunt. Manet Offic. Adri. Luci. Courtizan\n\nOff.\nOne Angelo a Goldsmith, do you know him?\n\nAdr.\nI know the man: what is the summe he owes?\n\nOff.\nTwo hundred Duckets.\n\nAdr.\nSay, how growes it due.\n\nOff.\nDue for a Chaine your husband had of him.\n\nAdr.\nHe did bespeake a Chain for me, but had it not.\n\nCur.\nWhen as your husband all in rage to day\nCame to my house, and tooke away my Ring,\nThe Ring I saw vpon his finger now,\nStraight after did I meete him with a Chaine.\n\nAdr.\nIt may be so, but I did neuer see it.\nCome Iailor, bring me where the Goldsmith is,\nI long to know the truth heereof at large.\n\nEnter Antipholus Siracusia with his Rapier drawne, and Dromio Sirac.\n\nLuc.\nGod for thy mercy, they are loose againe.\n\nAdr.\nAnd come with naked swords,\nLet's call more helpe to haue them bound againe. Runne all out.\n\nOff.\nAway, they'l kill vs. Exeunt omnes, as fast as may be, frighted.\n\nS.Ant.\nI see these Witches are affraid of swords.\n\nS.Dro.\nShe that would be your wife, now ran from you.\n\nAnt.\nCome to the Centaur, fetch our stuffe from thence:\nI long that we were safe and sound aboord.\n\nDro.\nFaith stay heere this night, they will surely do vs no harme: you saw they speake vs faire, giue vs gold: me thinkes they are such a gentle Nation, that but for the Mountaine of mad flesh that claimes mariage of me, I could finde in my heart to stay heere still, and turne Witch.\n\nAnt.\nI will not stay to night for all the Towne,\nTherefore away, to get our stuffe aboord. Exeunt\n\n"}]
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