The Cheaters Cheated: VIII. Argeers

Tune: Argeers

Enter Filch and Nim

Filch, Nim: We shall ne’re have lucky minuit,

None of our designs will hit,

Some ill planet sure is in it,

Fortune makes a fool of wit:

All our cheats are simple cheats

And destiny will have it so.

There’s nothing hits but with those wits

That cheat Cum Privilegio

The holy drum and godly gun

Are now the onley engines that

Make pimp and whore and Hector poor

And wise men do they know not what.

Filch: All our joyful days do leave us

Nim: Never were such times as these,

Filch: Every Bumkin can deceive us

Nim: With hobnails, Filch: and with bread and cheese

Though we mist it, he confest it

That he brought up fifty pound,

Nim: Where he hid it, how he did it

Is the plot that may be found.

Filch: If we meet him we will fit him

Nim: Hark, I hear one coming in …

Very pleasant, ’tis the peasant,

Filch: Now let’s to our guards agen. They hide and watch

Enter Wat with a trunk on a stick hanging at his back