VALENTINE    I pray thee, Lance, and if thou seest my boy

Bid him make haste and meet me at the North Gate.

PROTEUS       Go sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.

VALENTINE    O, my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!

[Exeunt Valentine and Proteus]

LANCE            I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave. But that’s all one, if he be but one knave.             (3.1.254-259)

Off they go, at a run; Valentine just has the presence of mind to ask Lance to find Speed, his boy, and to ask him to meet him at the North Gate—and to hurry, make haste! Proteus (who is, after all, Lance’s master) reiterates the order: go sirrah, find him out. Seek him, don’t just wait around on the off-chance that you might see him. Valentine has one final lament, for Silvia—my dear Silvia—and for himself, hapless, unlucky Valentine, as he’s propelled away by Proteus. Exit two gentlemen, the last time they’ll appear together for a good while.

The comedy is in the timing, of course. Does Lance make haste? He does not. He barely moves. There may be a long pause. (Probably even funnier if Crab is pottering around, having a good sniff and a scratch.) Then he speaks. I am but a fool, look you—that’s all I am, just a fool (and he is the company fool as well). What do I know? And yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave. Aha. So Lance has worked out already that Proteus has done the dirty on Valentine, betrayed his friend and had him banished from Silvia and from Milan. I’m not that stupid, then, am I? But that’s all one, if he be but one knave. It makes no difference now, though, if he’s only one knave; there are various proverbial things in play here: Proteus may be just a single knave, but he’s also a two-faced double-crosser, and a protean shapeshifter, a slippery customer. So it doesn’t matter what I think or how clever I am, he’s still been a proper bastard to his friend, my master has.