SPEED            Let me read them.

LANCE                        Fie on thee, jolt-head. Thou canst not read.

SPEED Thou liest. I can.

LANCE I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?

SPEED Marry, the son of my grandfather.

LANCE O, illiterate loiterer, it was the son of thy grandmother. This proves that thou canst not read.

SPEED Come, fool, come. Try me in thy paper.

LANCE [giving the paper] There. And Saint Nicholas be thy speed.         (3.1.277-285)

Speed, understandably, wants to read the news, which he assumes is what Lance has, but mostly it’s an excuse to ramp up the comedy of this list of Lance’s beloved’s qualities. Bit more banter to start, though, inevitably: fie on thee, jolt-head. Don’t be an idiot, thou canst not read. Thou liest, I can! retorts Speed, understandably insulted by this. (In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare will get marginally more comedy into the figure of the illiterate servant, surely a comic staple, but also manage to make it a crucial plot point, allowing Romeo and his friends to find out about the Capulet party and—sort of—get an invitation.)

I will try thee, says Lance, go on, show me. But the comedy is that he doesn’t get him to read, but instead interrogates him in a formula that partly recalls that of catechism, the questions and answers learned by rote by those who were being confirmed in the Church of England. Tell me this, who begot thee? It’s also setting up the next joke, of course: if you’re so clever, tell me who your father is, the implication being, you don’t know, do you? Marry, the son of my grandfather is my father, obviously. O, illiterate—punning on illegitimate—loiterer! You idle fool! It was the son of your grandmother! Gotcha! Lance undermines his own insult, sort of, by implying that Speed’s father is the bastard, rather than Speed himself. This proves thou canst not read. (It doesn’t, not in the slightest. It’s just enabling the quibble on illiterate/illegitimate.)

Speed’s being surprisingly patient: come, fool, come. Don’t be an idiot. Try me in thy paper: let me have a look at that, and I’ll show you that I can read. There, if you insist. And Saint Nicholas be thy speed, good luck to you—St Nicholas is patron of children and scholars. (The OED’s first citation of Old Nick for the devil is a good half century later than 2 Gents, but the play on Speed’s name via the conventional ‘godspeed’, good luck to you, might just be suggesting that.)

 Will anyone mourn if these deathless lines are cut? They will not. However, editors gonna edit…