Page:Quentin Massys (1875).djvu/9

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SCENE III.

A Street in AntwepViscont and Charles Meeting.

Chas. How feel you now?

Vis. My head is ringing as if a thousand clocks were winding up to strike, and yet it never comes off.

Chas. Oh! you'll soon get hardened.

Vis. We students are not used to such potations.

Chas. A Student?

Vis. An Italian Artist.

Chas. I suppose its all the same: you should see Quentin Massys, he'll talk to you by the hour about that stuff; he's always poring over his books as if he were a priest.

Vis. I think you said he was a friend of that fellow who attacked us so last night.

Chas. What Franz! oh yes: they're a strange pair.

Enter Franz.

We were just speaking of you!

Franz. The worse luck to a good subject.

Vis. You seem fond of banter.

Franz. I use my kerchief to keep off flies.

Vis. And somewhat proverbial.

Franz. Shortness of speech is a saving both of time and strength, and your great talker is one who thinks he has too much of one of these of which no man has enough.

Vis. That is philosophical.

Franz. Name sense as you will, you cannot mar it; and it is much easier to name than to possess.

Chas. Come Franz! you students are the most impudent dogs in the city.

Franz. I am a student of plain speeches, and to the many truth will be always impudent.

Vis. You are severe to your friends.

Franz. I know all their faults, of strangers only some.

Enter Quentin

Chas. Ah Quentin! pray pacify Franz here, who is making a most savage onslaughter on this gentleman, an artist from Italy.

Quen. Ah! you do not know Franz. An artist, sir?

Vis. A poor one at your service.

Quen. Would that I were.

Vis. You compete for the prize to-day?

Chas. Quentin! Ha! ha! Quentin!

Franz. What now! (check himself) Sir, it is only the first of the guild who enter for it.

Quen. And I am poor and feeble.

Franz. One of the best scholars in the city

Quen. Franz!–this is his satire; what little time I steal