Jetter. This is no time for compliments. Does your back itch again? are your wounds already healed? Vansen. Ask a soldier about his wounds? Had I cared for blows, nothing good would have come of me. Jetter. Matters may grow more serious. Vansen. You feel from the gathering storm a pitiful weakness in your limbs, it seems. Carpenter. Your limbs will soon be in motion elsewhere, if you do not keep quiet. Vansen. Poor mice! The master of the house procures a new cat, and ye are straight in despair! The difference is very trifling; we shall get on as we did before, only be quiet. Carpenter. You are an insolent knave. Vansen. Gossip! Let the duke alone. The old cat looks as though he had swallowed devils, instead of mice, and could not now digest them. Let him alone, I say; he must eat, drink, and sleep, like other men. I am not afraid if we only watch our opportunity, At first he makes quick work Of it; by- and-by, however, he too will find that it is pleasanter to live in the larder, among flitches of bacon, and to rest by night, than to entrap a few solitary   mice in the granary. Go to! I know the stadtholders. Carpenter. What such a fellow can say with impunity! Had I said such a thing, I should not hold myself safe a moment. Vansen. Do not make yourselves uneasy! God in heaven does not trouble himself about you, poor worms, much less the Regent. Jetter. Slanderer! Vansen. I know some for whom it would be better if, instead of their own high spirits, they had a little tailor's blood in their veins. Carpenter. What mean you by that? Vansen. Hum! I mean the count. Jetter. Egmont! What has he to fear? Vansen. I'm a poor devil, and could live a whole year round on what he loses in a single night; yet he would do well to give me his revenue for a twelvemonth, to have my head upon his shoulders for one quarter of an hour. Jetter. You think yourself very clever; yet there is more sense in the hairs of Egmont's head, than in your brains. Vansen. Perhaps so! Not more shrewdness, however. These gentry are the most apt to deceive themselves. He should be more chary of his