_First Ruf._ I prithee, smith, is your occupation so excellent?
_Adam._ "A paltry smith"! Why, I'll stand to it, a smith is lord of the four elements; for our iron is made of the earth, our bellows blow out air, our floor holds fire, and our forge water. Nay, sir, we read in the Chronicles that there was a god of our occupation.
_Adam._ That was the reason, sir, he call'd your father cousin. "Paltry smith"! Why, in this one word thou hast defaced their worshipful occupation.
_Adam._ Marry, sir, I will stand to it, that a smith in his kind is a physician, a surgeon and a barber. For let a horse take a cold, or be troubled with the bots, and we straight give him a potion or a purgation, in such physical manner that he mends straight: if he have outward diseases, as the spavin, splent, ringbone, windgall or fashion,[67] or, sir, a galled back, we let him blood and clap a plaster to him with a pestilence, that mends him with a very vengeance: now, if his mane grow out of order, and he have any rebellious hairs, we straight to our shears and trim him with what cut it please us, pick his ears and make him neat. Marry, ay, indeed, sir, we are slovens for one thing; we never use musk-balls to wash him with, and the reason is, sir, because he can woo without kissing.
_First Ruf._ Well, sirrah, leave off these praises of a smith, and bring us to the best ale in the town.
_Adam._ Now, sir, I have a feat above all the smiths in Nineveh; for, sir, I am a philosopher that can dispute of the nature of ale; for mark you, sir, a pot of ale consists of four parts,--imprimus the ale, the toast, the ginger, and the nutmeg.
_Adam._ The ale is a restorative, bread is a binder: mark you, sir, two excellent points in physic; the ginger, O, ware of that! the philosophers have written of the nature of ginger, 'tis expulsitive in two degrees; you shall hear the sentence of Galen,
"It will make a man belch, cough, and fart, And is a great comfort to the heart,"--
a proper posy, I promise you; but now to the noble virtue of the nutmeg; it is, saith one ballad (I think an English Roman was the author), an underlayer to the brains, for when the ale gives a buffet to the head, O the nutmeg! that keeps him for a while in temper. Thus you see the description of the virtue of a pot of ale; now, sir, to put my physical precepts in practice, follow me: but afore I step any further--