And how many years think ye he liv'd?
Seventy-odd: but he was as hard as horn, bore his age well, and as
black as a crow.
"I knew him some years ago an oilman, and to his last a good womans
man; but withal such a miser, that (so help me Hercules) I think he
left not a dogg in his house. He was also a great whore-master, and a
jack of all trades; nor do I condemn him for't, for this was the only
secret he kept to himself and carry'd with him."
Thus Phileros and Gammedes, as followeth: "Ye talk of what concerns
neither Heaven nor Earth, when in the mean time no man regards what
makes all victuals so scarce: I could not (so help me Hercules) get a
mouthful of bread to day: and how? The drought continues: For my
part, I have not fill'd my belly this twelve-month: A plague on these
clerks of the market, the baker and they juggle together; take no
notice of me, I'll take no notice of thee; which make the poorer sort
labour for nothing, while those greater jaw-bones make festival every
day. Oh that we had those lyons I now find here, when I first came
out of Asia, that had been to live: The inner part of Sicily had the
like of them, but they so handled the goblins, even Jupiter bore them
no good-will. I remember Safinius, when I was a boy, he liv'd by the
old arch; you'd have taken him for pepper-corn rather than a man;
where-ever he went the earth parched under him; yet he was honest at
bottom; one might depend on him; a friend to his friend, and whom you
might boldly trust in the dark.
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