gs," said Heywood, heartily, "and I will be thy
friend--let this be thine earnest." As he spoke he slipped upon the
boy's finger a gold ring with a green stone in it cut with a tall tree:
this was his seal.

They had now come through the garden to the Rose Theatre, where the Lord
Admiral's company played; and Carew was himself again. "Come,
Nicholas," said he, half jestingly, "be done with thy doleful
dumps--care killed a cat, they say, lad. Why, if thy hateful looks could
stab, I'd be a dead man forty times. Come, cheer up, lad, that I may
know thou lovest me."

"But I do na love thee!" cried Nick, indignantly.

"Tut! Do not be so dour. Thou'lt soon be envied by ten thousand men.
Come, don't make a face at thy good fortune as though it were a tripe
fried in tar. Come, lad, be pleased; thou'lt be the pet of every
high-born dame in London town."

"I'd rather be my mother's boy," Nick answered simply.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ROSE PLAY-HOUSE

The play-house was an eight-sided, three-storied, tower-like building of
oak and plastered lath, upon a low foundation of yellow brick. Two
outside stairways ran around the wall, and the roof was of bright-red
English tiles with a blue lead gutter at the eaves. There was a little
turret, from the top of which a tall ash stave went up; and on the
stave, whenever there was to be a play, there floated a great white flag
on which was a crimson rose with a golden heart, just like the one that
Nick with such delight had seen come up the Oxford road a few short
days before.

Under the stairway was a narrow door marked "For the Playeres Onelie";
and in the doorway stood a shrewd-faced, common-looking man, writing
upon a tablet which he held in his hand. There was a case of quills at
his side, with one of which he was scratching busily, now and then
prodding the ink-horn at his girdle. He held his tongue in his cheek,
and moved his head about as the pen formed the letters: he was no
expert penman, this Phil Henslowe, the stager of plays.

He looked up as they came to the step.

"A poor trip, Carew," said he, running his finger down the column of
figures he was adding. "The play was hardly worth the candle--cleared
but five pound; and then, after I had paid the carman three shilling fip
to bring the stuff down from the City, 'twas lost in the river from the
barge at Paul's wharf! A good two pound."

"Hard luck!" said Carew.

"Hard? Adamantine, I say! Why, 'tis very stones for