eye and his hand. I mind the night I had finished the
models for the bronze saints round the tomb; Torrigiano embraced me
before all the chapel, and bade me to supper. I met Benedetto when I
came out. He was slavering in the porch Like a mad dog.'

'Workin' himself up to it?' said Mr Springett. 'Did he have it in at ye
that night?'

'No, no. That time he kept his oath to Torrigiano. But I pitied him. Eh,
well! Now I come to my own follies. I had never thought too little of
myself; but after Torrisany had put his arm round my neck, I--I'--Hal
broke into a laugh--'I lay there was not much odds 'twixt me and a
cock-sparrow in his pride.'

'I was pretty middlin' young once on a time,' said Mr Springett.

'Then ye know that a man can't drink and dice and dress fine, and keep
company above his station, but his work suffers for it, Mus' Springett.'

'I never held much with dressin' up, but--you're right! The worst
mistakes I ever made they was made of a Monday morning,' Mr Springett
answered. 'We've all been one sort of fool or t'other. Mus' Dan, Mus'
Dan, take the smallest gouge, or you'll be spluttin' her stem works
clean out. Can't ye see the grain of the wood don't favour a chisel?'

'I'll spare you some of my follies. But there was a man called
Brygandyne--Bob Brygandyne--Clerk of the King's Ships, a little, smooth,
bustling atomy, as clever as a woman to get work done for nothin'--a
won'erful smooth-tongued pleader. He made much o' me, and asked me to
draft him out a drawing, a piece of carved and gilt scroll-work for the
bows of one of the King's Ships--the SOVEREIGN was her name.'

'Was she a man-of-war?'asked Dan.

'She was a warship, and a woman called Catherine of Castile desired the
King to give her the ship for a pleasure-ship of her own. I did not
know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and
fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour,
all of a heat after supper--one great heaving play of dolphins and a
Neptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his
harp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine
foot deep--painted and gilt.'

It must ha' justabout looked fine,' said Mr Springett.

'That's the curiosity of it. 'Twas bad--rank bad. In my conceit I must
needs show it to Torrigiano, in the chapel. He straddles his legs,
hunches his knife behind him, and whistles like a storm-cock through a
sleet-shower. Bene