Thomas Otway Author:Thomas Otway Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SOLDIER'S FORTUNE. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE 1.—The Mail in St. James's Park. Enter Beaugard, Courtine, and Fourbin. EAU. A pox o' fortune! Thou ar... more »t always teasing me about fortune : thou risest in a morning with ill- luck in thy mouth; nay, never eatest a dinner, but thou sighest two hours after it, with thinking where to get the next. Fortune be damned, since the world's so wide ! Cour. As wide as it is, 'tis so thronged and crammed with knaves and fools, that an honest man can hardly get a living in it. Beau. Do, rail, Courtine, do: it may get thee employment. Cour. At you I ought to rail; 'twas your fault we left our employments abroad, to come home and be loyal; and now we as loyally starve for it. Beau. Did not thy ancestors do it before thee, man ? I tell thee, loyalty and starving are all one. The old cavaliers got such a trick of it in the king's exile, that their posterity could never thrive since. Cour. 'Tis a fine equipage I am like to be reduced to ; I shall be ere long as greasy as an Alsatian bully ; this flopping hat, pinned up on one side, with a sandy, weather-beaten peruke, dirty linen, and, to complete the figure, a long scandalous iron sword jarring at my heels, like a— Beau. Snarling, thou meanest, like its master. Cour. My companions the worthy knights of the most noble order of the post ; your peripatetic philosophers of the Temple-walks,1 rogues in rags, and yet not honest; villains that undervalue damnation, will forswear themselves for a dinner, and hang their fathers for half-a-crown. Beau. I am ashamed to hear a soldier talk of starving. Cour. Why, what shall I do ? I can't steal. Beau. Though thou canst not steal, thou hast other vices enough for any industrious fellow to live comfortably upon. Cour. What...« less