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SCENE i] LOVE FOR LOVE 223<br />
Vol. I would have an excuse for your barbarity and unnatural<br />
usage.<br />
Sir Samp. Excuse! impudence! Why, sirrah, mayn't I dn<br />
what I please? are not you my slave? did not I beget you?<br />
and might not I have chosen whether I would have besot<br />
you or no? 'Dons! who are you? whence came you? what<br />
brought you into the world? how came you here, sir?<br />
here, to stand here, upon those two legs, and look erect with<br />
that audacious face, hah? Answer me that? Did you come<br />
a volunteer into the world? or did I, with the lawful<br />
authority of a parent, press you to the service?<br />
Vol. I know no more why I came than you do why you<br />
called me. But here I am, and if you don't mean to provide<br />
for me, I desire you would leave me as you found me.<br />
Sir Samp. With all my heart: come, uncase, strip, and<br />
go naked out of the world as you came into't.<br />
Val. My clothes are soon put off;—but you must also<br />
divest me of reason, thought, passions, inclinations, affections,<br />
appetites, senses, and the huge train of attendants<br />
that you begot along with me.<br />
Sir Samp. Body o'me, what a many-headed monster have<br />
I propagated!<br />
Val. I am of myself a plain, easy, simple creature, and<br />
to be kept at small expense; but the retinue that you rave<br />
me are craving and invincible; they are so many devils that<br />
you have raised, and will have employment.<br />
Sir Samp. 'Dons, what had I to do to get children!—can't<br />
a private man be born without all these followers?—Why,<br />
nothing under an emperor should be born with appetites.—<br />
Why, at this rate, a fellow that has but a groat in his pocket,<br />
may have a stomach capable of a ten-shilling ordinary.<br />
Jer. Nay, that's as clear as the sun; I'll make oath of it<br />
before any justice in Middlesex.<br />
Sir Samp. Here's a cormorant too.—'S'heart, this fellow<br />
was not born with you?—I did not beget him, did I?<br />
Jer. By the provision that's made for me, you micht have<br />
betrot me too:—nay, and to tell your worship another truth,<br />
[ believe you did, for I find I was born with those same<br />
whoreson appetites tno that mv master speaks of.<br />
Sir Samp. Why, look you there now—I'll maintain it,<br />
that by the rule of right reason, this fellow ought to have<br />
iccn born without a palate.—'S'heart, what should he do
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