A Road near Coventry.
 Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Falstaff	Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of 
	sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton 
	Co'fil' tonight.

Bardolph	Will you give me money, captain?

Falstaff	Lay out, lay out.

Bardolph	This bottle makes an angel.

Falstaff	And if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make 
	twenty, take them all - I'll answer the coinage. Bid my 
	lieutenant Peto meet me at town's end.

Bardolph	I will, captain. Farewell.
												[Exit.

Falstaff	If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. 
	I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got in 
	exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers three hundred and 
	odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, 
	yeomen's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such 
	as had been asked twice on the banns - such a commodity of 
	warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such 
	as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl 
	or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-
	and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than 
	pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and 
	now my whole charge consists of ensigns, corporals, 
	lieutenants, gentlemen of companies - slaves as ragged as 
	Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs 
	licked his sores - and such as indeed were never soldiers, 
	but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger 
	brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fall'n; the 
	cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more 
	dishonourable-ragged than an old fazed ensign; and such 
	have I to fill up the rooms of them as have bought out 
	their services that you would think that I had a hundred 
	and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-
	keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me 
	on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and 
	pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. 
	I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. 
	Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if 
	they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out 
	of prison. There's not a shirt and a half in all my 
	company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together 
	and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without 
	sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my 
	host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of 
	Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on 
	every hedge.

              Enter the PRINCE and the Lord of WESTMORELAND.

Prince Henry	How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?

Falstaff	What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in 
	Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland! I cry you 
	mercy, I thought your honour had already been at 
	Shrewsbury.

Westmoreland	Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, 
	and you too; but my powers are there already. The king, I 
	can tell you, looks for us all; we must away all night.

Falstaff	Tut, never fear me, I am as vigilant as a cat to steal 
	cream.

Prince Henry	I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already 
	made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are 
	these that come after?

Falstaff	Mine, Hal, mine.

Prince Henry	I did never see such pitiful rascals.

Falstaff	Tut, tut, good enough to toss; food for powder, food for 
	powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, 
	mortal men, mortal men.

Westmoreland	Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and 
	bare, too beggarly.

Falstaff	Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; 
	and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that 
	of me.

Prince Henry	No, I'll be sworn, unless you call three fingers in the 
	ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in 
	the field.
												[Exit.
Falstaff	What, is the king encamped?

Westmoreland	He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.
												[Exit.
Falstaff	Well, to the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a 
	feast fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
												[Exit.
