lk, "what will
ye play for the Mayor's play, sir?"

"I don't know," replied Carew, carelessly; "it will all be done before I
come. They will have had the free play this afternoon, so as to catch
the pence of all the May-day crowd to-morrow."

Nick stopped in the road, and his eyes filled up with tears, so quick
and bitter was the disappointment. "Why," he cried, with a tremble in
his tired voice, "I thought the free play would be on the morrow--and
now I have not a farthing to go in!"

"Tut, tut, thou silly lad!" laughed Carew, frankly; "am I thy friend for
naught? What! let thee walk all the way to Coventry, and never see the
play? Nay, on my soul! Why, Nick, I love thee, lad; and I'll do for thee
in the twinkling of an eye. Canst thou speak lines by heart? Well, then,
say these few after me, and bear them in thy mind."

And thereupon he hastily repeated some half a dozen disconnected lines
in a high, reciting tone.

"Why, sir," cried Nick, bewildered, "it is a part!"

"To be sure," said Carew, laughing, "it is a part--and a part of a very
good whole, too--a comedy by young Tom Heywood, that would make a graven
image split its sides with laughing; and do thou just learn that part,
good Master Skylark, and thou shalt say it in to-morrow's play."

"What, Master Carew!" gasped Nick. "I--truly? With the Lord Admiral's
players?"

"Why, to be sure!" cried the master-player, in great glee, clapping him
upon the back. "Didst think I meant a parcel of dirty tinkers? Nay, lad;
thou art just the very fellow for the part--my lady's page should be a
pretty lad, and, soul o' me, thou art that same! And, Nick, thou shalt
sing Tom Heywood's newest song. It is a pretty song; it is a lark-song
like thine own."

Nick could hardly believe his ears. To act with the Lord Admiral's
company! To sing with them before all Coventry! It passed the wildest
dream that he had ever dreamed. What would the boys in Stratford say?
Aha! they would laugh on the other side of their mouths now!

"But will they have me, sir?" he asked doubtfully.

"Have thee?" said Master Carew, haughtily. "If I say go, thou shalt go.
I am master here. And I tell thee, Nick, that thou shalt see the play,
and be the play, in part, and--well, we shall see what we shall see."

With that he fell to humming and chuckling to himself, as if he had
swallowed a water-mill, while Nick turned ecstatic cart-wheels along the
grass beside the road, until presently Coventry c