B. 'Tis but a fair demand. A. What hoa! within there! [Calls to his servant. My style and tablets. (Style and tablets are brought.) Now, Sir, to your reckoning. B. To salt a herring—price—two farthings— A. Good. [Writes.
B. To mussels—three— A. No villany as yet. [Writes.
B. Item, to eels—one obol— A. Still you're guiltless. [Writes.
B. Next came the radishes; yourselves allow'd—
A. And we retract not—they were delicate
And good.
B. For these I touch two obols.
A. [Aside.] Tush!
The praise is in the bill—better our palates
Had been less riotous—onward.
B. To a rand
Of tunny fish—this charge will break a sixpence.
A. Dealst on the square? no filching?—no purloining?—
B. No, not a doit—thou'rt green, good fellow, green;
And a mere novice yet in market-prices.
Why, man, the palmer-worms have fix'd their teeth
Upon the kitchen-herbs.
A. Ergo, salt fish
Bears twice its usual price—call you that logic?
B. Nay, if you've doubts—to the fishmonger straight,—
He lives and will resolve them.—To a conger-eel—
Ten obols.
A. I have nothing to object:
Proceed.
B. Item, broil'd fish—a drachma.
A. Fie on't!—
I was a man, and here's the fever come
With double force.
B. There's wine too in the bill,
Bought when my masters were well half-seas over—
Three pitchers, at ten obols to the pitcher.—Mitchell.
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