phatically.

"Your father left you twenty crowns apiece?"

"Ay, but John hath all save four of them."

"For that there's remedy. What saidst thou of the Cheapside armourer?
His fellow, the Wrymouth, seemed to have a care of you. Ye made in to
the rescue with poor old Spring."

"Even so," replied Ambrose, "and if Stevie would brook the thought, I
trow that Master Headley would be quite willing to have him bound as his
apprentice."

"Well said, my good lad!" cried Hal. "What sayest thou, Stevie?"

"I had liefer be a man-at-arms."

"That thou couldst only be after being sorely knocked about as horse-boy
and as groom. I tried that once, but found it meant kicks, and oaths,
and vile company--such as I would not have for thy mother's son, Steve.
Headley is a well-reported, God-fearing man, and will do well by thee.
And thou wilt learn the use of arms as well as handle them."

"I like Master Headley and Kit Smallbones well enough," said Stephen,
rather gloomily, "and if a gentleman must be a prentice, weapons are not
so bad a craft for him."

"Whittington was a gentleman," said Ambrose.

"I am sick of Whittington," muttered Stephen.

"Nor is he the only one," said Randall, "there's Middleton and Pole--ay,
and many another who have risen from the flat cap to the open helm, if
not to the coronet. Nay, these London companies have rules against
taking any prentice not of gentle blood. Come in to supper with my good
woman, and then I'll go with thee and hold converse with good Master
Headley, and if Master John doth not send the fee freely, why then I
know of them who shall make him disgorge it. But mark," he added, as he
led the way out of the gardens, "not a breath of Quipsome Hal. Down
here they know me as a clerk of my lord's chamber, sad and sober, and
high in his trust and therein they are not far out."

In truth, though Harry Randall had been a wild and frolicsome youth in
his Hampshire home, the effect of being a professional buffoon had
actually made it a relaxation of effort to him to be grave, quiet, and
slow in movement; and this was perhaps a more effectual disguise than
the dark garments, and the false brown hair, beard, and moustache, with
which he concealed the shorn and shaven condition required of the
domestic jester. Having been a player, he was well able to adapt
himself to his part, and yet Ambrose had considerable doubts whether
Tibble had not suspected his identity from the first, more