William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT I. 2. SCENE II. London. A street. (continued)

FALSTAFF.
Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all
you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a
hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I
mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, and I brandish
any thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again.
There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust
upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it was alway yet the trick of
our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I
would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is:
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
nothing with perpetual motion.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

FALSTAFF.
Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses.
Fare you well: commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant.]

FALSTAFF.
If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate
age and covetousness than 'a can part young limbs and lechery: but
the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the
degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

PAGE.
Sir?

FALSTAFF.
What money is in my purse?

PAGE.
Seven groats and two pence.