Act IV, Scene 2

A public 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.

• Lord Bardolph. Will you give me money, captain? 2370

• Falstaff. Lay out, lay out.

• Lord Bardolph. This bottle makes an angel.

• Falstaff. An 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. 2375

• Lord 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 2380
  soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me
  none but good house-holders, yeoman'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 lieve hear the devil as a drum; such as 2385
  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 2390
  ancients, 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 serving-men, younger sons to 2395
  younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers
  trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a
  long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than
  an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up
  the rooms of them that have bought out their 2400
  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 2405
  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 but a shirt and a half in all my 2410
  company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked
  together and thrown over the shoulders like an
  herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say
  the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or
  the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all 2415
  one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

[Enter the PRINCE and WESTMORELAND]

• Henry V. 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 2420
  cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been
  at Shrewsbury.

• Earl of 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 2425
  away all night.

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

• Henry V. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath
  already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose 2430
  fellows are these that come after?

• Falstaff. Mine, Hal, mine.

• Henry V. 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: 2435
  tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

• Earl of 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 2440
  learned that of me.

• Henry V. No I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on
  the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is
  already in the field.

• Falstaff. What, is the king encamped? 2445

• Earl of Westmoreland. He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.

• Falstaff. Well,
  To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
  Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exeunt]