By hiring Hans, a foreigner, to work for the shoemakers they have unintentionally stumbled into a great trade opportunity with a foreign merchant. Eyre has become a rich man because he was willing to work with a craftsman from a different country. .
Not only does Dekker use Hans to look at the ideas of trade he also uses him to explores the idea of peace instead of war. In earlier scenes Lacy has bought his way out of war and gone under the disguise of Hans a foreign shoemaker. When Eyre hires Hans Dekker is showing that different types of people can do more than go to war with one another. Eyre is expanding his community to a different culture and by doing this he is building a positive relationship, one that brings about progress and profit instead of death and destruction. The third topic the Dekker addresses by using disguise is the blocked love between Lacy and Rose. Lacy and Rose's uncles have their own reasons why they don't want them together, but mainly the problem centers around their social status. By Lacy, being disguised as Hans, lowering his social status and becoming a shoemaker he is allowing Rose to see his true feelings for her. One lowering their social status was unheard of during this time period and one could believe that Dekker is showing how unimportant social class is when it comes to love and marriage. In scene seventeen Eyre, now rich because of Hans" trade deal, tells the undisguised Lacy and Rose that, "none but the King shall wrong thee. Come, fear nothing" (6-7). Here a common craftsman, although very wealthy, makes a decision that goes against the social norm of the time. .
Like Dekker, Johnson uses the art of disguise to address certain key topics of his time in his play Epicene. Epicene is a young boy who has been dressed up like a woman to bother, frustrate, and deceive the play's antagonist Morose. Morose is a man who hates noise; Clerimont states about Morose, "He can endure no noise" (142).