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Fal. I would all the world might be cozen’d, for I have been cozen’d and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transform’d, and how my transformation hath been wash’d and cudgell’d, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfall’n as a dried pear. I never prosper’d since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough [to say my prayers], I would repent.

[Enter Mistress] Quickly.

Now? whence come you?

Quick. From the two parties, forsooth.

Fal. The devil take one party and his dam the other! and so they shall be both bestow’d. I have suffer’d more for their sakes—more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.

Quick. And have not they suffer’d? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

Fal. What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colors of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, deliver’d me, the knave constable had set me i’ th’ stocks, i’ th’ common stocks, for a witch.