THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS
Page: 17

FOOL.
Are you three usurers' men?

ALL SERVANTS.
Ay, fool.

FOOL.
I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my mistress
is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your
masters, they approach sadly, and go away merry; but they enter
my mistress' house merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of
this?

VARRO'S SERVANT.
I could render one.

APEMANTUS.
Do it, then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a
knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.

VARRO'S SERVANT.
What is a whoremaster, fool?

FOOL.
A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a
spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer;
sometime like a philosopher, with two stones more than's
artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and generally,
in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to
thirteen, this spirit walks in.

VARRO'S SERVANT.
Thou art not altogether a fool.

FOOL.
Nor thou altogether a wise man:
as much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lackest.

APEMANTUS.
That answer might have become Apemantus.

VARRO'S SERVANT.
Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.

[Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS.]

APEMANTUS.
Come with me, fool, come.

FOOL.
I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;
sometime the philosopher.

[Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL.]

FLAVIUS.
Pray you walk near: I'll speak with you anon.

[Exeunt SERVANTS.]

TIMON.
You make me marvel: wherefore, ere this time,
Had you not fully laid my state before me,
That I might so have rated my expense
As I had leave of means?

FLAVIUS.
You would not hear me,
At many leisures I propos'd.

TIMON.
Go to:
Perchance some single vantages you took,
When my indisposition put you back;
And that unaptness made your minister
Thus to excuse yourself.

FLAVIUS.
O my good lord!
At many times I brought in my accounts,
Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
And say you found them in mine honesty.
When for some trifling present you have bid me
Return so much, I have shook my head, and wept;
Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you