William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I

ACT III. 3. Scene III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's-Head Tavern. (continued)

BARD.
'Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach!

FAL.
God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.--

[Enter the Hostess.]

How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you enquir'd yet who
pick'd my pocket?

HOST.
Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I
keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have inquired,
so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant:
the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

FAL.
Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and
I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman, go.

HOST.
Who, I? no; I defy thee: God's light, I was never call'd so in
mine own house before.

FAL.
Go to, I know you well enough.

HOST.
No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John:
you owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me
of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

FAL.
Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives,
and they have made bolters of them.

HOST.
Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.
You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings,
and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

FAL.
He had his part of it; let him pay.

HOST.
He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

FAL.
How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let
them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks: I'll not pay a
denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take
mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have
lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.