very comedy for which Ben Jonson left us, because
we would not put it on, has been taken up by the Burbages on Will
Shakspere's say-so, and is running famously at the Curtain."

"I told you so, Master Alleyn, when the fellow was fresh from the
Netherlands," said Carew; "but your ears were plugged with your own
conceit. Young Jonson is no flatfish, if he did lay brick; he's a plum
worth anybody's picking."

"But, plague take it, Carew, those Burbages have all the plums! Since
they weaned Will Shakspere from us everything has gone wrong. Kemp has
left us; old John Lowin, too; and now the Lord Mayor and Privy Council
have soured on the play again and forbidden all playing on the Bankside,
outside the City or no."

Carew whistled softly to himself.

"And since my Lord Chamberlain has been patron of the Burbages he will
not so much as turn a hand to revive the old game of bull- and
bear-baiting, and Phil and I have kept the Queen's bulldogs going on a
twelvemonth now at our own expense--a pretty canker on our profits! Why,
Carew, as Will Shakspere used to say, 'One woe doth tread the other's
heels, so fast they follow!' And what's to do?"

"What's to do?" said Carew. "Why, I've told ye what's to do. Ye've heard
Will say, 'There is a tide leads on to fortune if ye take it at the
flood'? Well, Master Alleyn, here's the tide, and at the flood. I have
offered you an argosy. Will ye sail or stick in the mud? Ye'll never
have such a chance again. Come, one fourth over my old share, and I will
fill your purse so full of gold that it will gape like a stuffed toad.
His is the sweetest skylark voice that ever sugared ears!"

"But, man, man, one fourth!"

"Better one fourth than lose it all," said Carew. "But, pshaw! Master
Ned Alleyn, I'll not beg a man to swim that's bent on drowning! We will
be at the play-house this afternoon; mayhap thou'lt have thought better
of it by then." With a curt bow he was off through the crowd, Nick's
hand in his own clenched very tight.

They had hard work getting down the steps, for two hot-headed gallants
were quarreling there as to who should come up first, and there was a
great press. But Carew scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his
poniard-hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them down.

Nick's eyes were hungry for the printers' stalls where ballad-sheets
were sold for a penny, and where the books were piled along the shelves
until he wondered if all London were