hand.

"Enough!" he said. "Depend on Essex's favor with the Queen and follow him to the Tower in good time."

"But, uncle, give me your kind permission at least to speak with him."

"My kind permission and my blessing!" the uncle answered suavely, moving toward the door. With his hand upon the latch he stood to add, across his shoulder, "You are behind the times in news, nephew. Three days ago my Lord of Essex departed somewhat suddenly for his estates—upon a hunting expedition, it is said, though beldame Rumor will insist that our most gracious Queen hath turned the icy eye at last upon his fawning."

"A morning frost!" cried Master Francis with a gesture. "A frost that the recurring sun of pity turns full soon to tender dew. But 'tis a chill of which to take advantage. Let me but follow my peevish lord to his retirement, lock in my humble cause with his, and in due season claim the meet reward of faithful service."

His manner had grown so earnest that the other turned to listen, albeit with a smile of contempt.

"Look you, uncle," the younger man went on, "were I to start at once, travelling in modest state, yet as befitting the nephew of the Lord Treasurer of England, well mounted and attended by a single man-servant, the whole adventure might be managed for a matter of one hundred pounds."

"Good!" cried the other with suspiciously ready acquiescence. "Thou art in verity a diplomat. By all means put your fortunes to the test, and when you have, acquaint me with the issue."

He turned and once more laid a hand upon the latch.

"But," protested Master Francis, "I have still to find the hundred pounds——"

"A riddle for diplomacy to solve!" replied the Lord Treasurer of England, laughing sardonically. "I can tell you no more than that you shall not find it in my purse!" And so saying, he strode from the room, leaving the door wide open.

For many minutes Master Francis paced the floor, muttering to himself, now angry imprecations at his own folly, now curses on the relentless arrogance of the Lord Treasurer. As the long twilight of the season fell he caught up his wide-brimmed hat and hurried from the house.

He took his way through narrow winding streets, and after several turnings came at length to one much wider, a thoroughfare lined with little shops, whose owners when not occupied with customers stood on their thresholds soliciting the patronage of passers-by.

"What do you lack?" they cried; "hats, shoes, or hosiery; gloves, ruffs, or farthingales?" each setting forth the value of his wares in frantic effort to outshout competitors. Along the pavement worthy citizens sauntered with wives and sweethearts, or stood in interested groups about some mountebank or maker of music performing upon several ill-tuned instruments at once. On a patch of trodden grass young men played noisy games of bowls until a gilded coach in passing wantonly destroyed their goal. Here a bout with single-stick was in progress, there a contest with bare fists which must have grown serious had not the watch arrived in time to separate the belligerents with their pikes. But the centre of most interest was a seafaring man who smoked a long-stemmed pipe with rather ostentatious unconcern. The men regarded him with furtive admiration, the women disapprovingly, while children ran to catch a whiff of the strange aromatic scent. When he blew puffs of vapor from his nostrils everybody laughed.

Master Francis, moving hastily aside to make way for the smoker and his escort, came into collision with a man of his own age, whose broad good-humored face showed due appreciation of the scene.

"What think you, friend?" the stranger asked, laughing. "Will this new savagery become an institution? Have we been at such pains to banish smoke from our churches only to turn our heads into censers? Mayhap this be another Popish plot?"

"It seems to me a bit of arrant folly," Master Francis answered somewhat listlessly, "and as such, certain to become the rage."

"They tell us it will prolong the life," went on the other, "for it is well known a herring when smoked outlasts a fresh one."

"Say rather he who smokes will live the longer because the wise die young," retorted Master Francis, pleased by the conceit.

"At least," remarked the stranger, "the fashion will make trade for fairy chimneysweeps."

Some further conversation followed naturally, for Master Francis, weary of his own society, was in the mood to welcome any companionship, and, moreover, the newcomer, who seemed a man of understanding, met another's eyes too frankly to leave the question of his honesty in doubt. They spoke of tobacco as a possible feature in social life, and both agreed that a whiff of the new herb might be an interesting experiment.

"Let us go then to the Bull," the stranger suggested, "where in a small room behind the tap one may smoke a pipe for threepence under the tutelage of this very seaman, who acquired the art in our Virginia colonies."

"Agreed!" cried Master Francis willingly; though at another time he might have rejected such an offer. "'Twill be an experience to remember."

"Marry," replied the other, "'tis he who lags behind the cavalcade who must take the dust. For my part I like not to be outfaced by any idle boaster who may lisp—'Ah, 'tis an art to keep the bowl aglow! Ah, shouldst see me fill my mouth with smoke, and blow it out in rings! Odd's bodkin, the Duke himself said bravo!'"

The stranger's mimicry of the mincing gallants of the day was to the life, and as they turned their steps toward the tavern, Master Francis laughed with satisfaction at finding himself in such good company. When presently his companion quoted Horace, he ventured to inquire at what school he had read the classics.

"At none," was the reply. "Let those who will perform the threshing. I am content to pick up kernels here and there like a sleek rat in a farmer's barn. Your tippling scholar of the taproom will set forth a rasher of lean Xenophon with every cup of sack, and as for churchmen—they be all unnatural sons who so bedeck their mother tongue in scraps and shreds of foreign phrase, the poor beldame walks abroad as motley mantled as a fiddler's wanton."

"But surely—Justitia eum cuique distribuit—as Cicero hath it," Master Francis cried in protest against such heresy. "You will not deny that an apt quotation lends grace to our too barren English."

"'Tis a thin sauce to a rich meat," replied the other; adding modestly, "I am, an't please you, sir, but one who, having little Latin and less Greek, must make a shift with what is left to him."

"Your speech belies you, sir," retorted Master Francis courteously, "for it proclaims a man of nice discrimination. I could swear you are a doctor of the law."

"Then would you be forsworn," replied the other, laughing, "for, by the grace of God, I am near kinsman to the dancing poodle of a country fair. Come any afternoon at three o'clock to the Curtain Play-house at Shoreditch, and there for sixpence you may see my antics."

"Ah, then you are a player!" Master Francis cried, well pleased.

"For the lack of a more honest calling," his companion answered with a gesture as who should say, "Tell me where can be found an honester?"

"Then we are in like case," laughed Master Francis. "Fere totus mundus exercet histrionem, says Phædrus; or as one might put it bluntly, 'All the world's a stage.'"

"Methinks our English hath the better jingle," commented the