ay, do foster forlorn children. Take my point? Good, then; let us
ravenous vagabonds take these two children for our own, Will,--thou one,
I t' other,--and by praiseworthy fostering singe this fellow's very
brain with shame."

"Why, here, here, Ben Jonson," spoke up Master Burbage, "this is all
very well for Will and thee; but, pray, where do Hemynge, Condell, and I
come in upon the bill? Come, man, 'tis a pity if we cannot all stand
together in this real play as well as in all the make-believe."

"That's my sort!" cried Master Hemynge. "Why, what? Here is a player's
daughter who has no father, and a player whose father will not have
him,--orphaned by fate, and disinherited by folly,--common stock with us
all! Marry, 'tis a sort of stock I want some of. Kind hearts are
trumps, my honest Ben--make it a stock company, and let us all be in."

"That's no bad fancy," added Condell, slowly, for Henry Condell was a
cold, shrewd man. "There's merit in the lad beside his voice--_that_
cannot keep its freshness long; but his figure's good, his wit is
quick, and he has a very taking style. It would be worth while, Dick.
And, Will," said he, turning to Master Shakspere, who listened with half
a smile to all that the others said, "he'll make a better _Rosalind_
than Roger Prynne for thy new play."

"So he would," said Master Shakspere; "but before we put him into 'As
You Like It,' suppose we ask him how he does like it? Nick, thou hast
heard what all these gentlemen have said--what hast thou to say,
my lad?"

"Why, sirs, ye are all kind," said Nick, his voice beginning to tremble,
"very, very kind indeed, sirs; but--I--I want my mother--oh, masters, I
do want my mother!"

At that John Combe turned on his heel and walked out of the gate. Out of
the garden-gate walked he, and down the dirty lane, setting his cane
down stoutly as he went, past gravel-pits and pens to Southam's lane,
and in at the door of Simon Attwood's tannery.

* * * * *

It was noon when he went in; yet the hour struck, and no one came or
went from the tannery. Mistress Attwood's dinner grew cold upon the
board, and Dame Combe looked vainly across the fields toward the town.

But about the middle of the afternoon John Combe came out of the tannery
door, and Simon Attwood came behind him. And as John Combe came down the
cobbled way, a trail of brown vat-liquor followed him, dripping from his
clothes, for he was soaked to the s