Corb. Dost thou mock me?

Volp. You mock the world, sir; did you not change Wills?

Corb. Out, harlot!

Volp. O! belike you are the man,
Signior Corvino? ’faith, you carry it well;
You grow not mad withal; I love your spirit:
You are not over-leaven’d with your fortune.
You should have some would swell now, like a wine-fat,
With such an autumn—Did he give you all, sir?

Corv. Avoid, you rascal!

Volp. Troth, your wife has shewn
Herself a very woman; but you are well,
You need not care, you have a good estate,
To bear it out, sir, better by this chance:
Except Corbaccio have a share.

Corb. Hence, varlet.

Volp. You will not be acknown, sir; why, ’tis wise.
Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble:
No man will seem to win. [Exeunt Corvino and Corbaccio.]—Here comes my vulture,
Heaving his beak up in the air, and snuffing.

Volt. Outstript thus, by a parasite! a slave,
Would run on errands, and make legs for crumbs!
Well, what I’ll do—

Volp. The court stays for your worship.
I e’en rejoice, sir, at your worship’s happiness,
And that it fell into so learned hands,
That understand the fingering—

Volt. What do you mean?

Volp. I mean to be a suitor to your worship,
For the small tenement, out of reparations,
That, to the end of your long row of houses,
By the Piscaria: it was, in Volpone’s time,
Your predecessor, ere he grew diseased,
A handsome, pretty, custom’d bawdy-house
As any was in Venice, none dispraised;
But fell with him: his body and that house
Decay’d together.

Volt. Come, sir, leave your prating.

Volp. Why, if your worship give me but your hand,
That I may have the refusal, I have done.
’Tis a mere toy to you, sir; candle-rents;
As your learn’d worship knows—

Volt. What do I know?

Volp. Marry, no end of your wealth, sir; God decrease it!

Volt. Mistaking knave! what, mock’st thou my misfortune?

Volp. His blessing on your heart, sir; would ’twere more!—
Now to my first again, at the next corner.

[Exit.

Scene V.—Another part of the Street.

Enter Corbaccio and Corvino;—Mosca passes over the Stage, before them.