of the
clerks of Saint Paul's," added Ambrose. "Alworthy is his name."

"That's well. We'll prove that same," said his uncle. "Meantime, if ye
have eaten your fill, we must be on our way to thine armourer, nevoy
Stephen, or I shall be called for."

And after a private colloquy between the husband and wife, Ambrose was
by both of them desired to make the little house his home until he could
find admittance into Saint Paul's School, or some other. He demurred
somewhat from a mixture of feelings, in which there was a certain amount
of Stephen's longing for freedom of action, and likewise a doubt whether
he should not thus be a great inconvenience in the tiny household--a
burden he was resolved not to be. But his uncle now took a more serious
tone.

"Look thou, Ambrose, thou art my sister's son, and fool though I be,
thou art bound in duty to me, and I to have charge of thee, nor will I--
for the sake of thy father and mother--have thee lying I know not where,
among gulls, and cutpurses, and beguilers of youth here in this city of
London. So, till better befalls thee, and I wot of it, thou must be
here no later than curfew, or I will know the reason why."

"And I hope the young gentleman will find it no sore grievance," said
Perronel, so good-humouredly that Ambrose could only protest that he had
feared to be troublesome to her, and promise to bring his bundle the
next day.

CHAPTER NINE.

ARMS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL.

"For him was leifer to have at his bedde's hedde
Twenty books clothed in blacke or redde
Of Aristotle and his philosophie
Than robes riche or fiddle or psalterie."
Chaucer.

Master Headley was found spending the summer evening in the bay window
of the hall. Tibble sat on a three-legged stool by him, writing in a
crabbed hand, in a big ledger, and Kit Smallbones towered above both,
holding in his hand a bundle of tally-sticks. By the help of these, and
of that accuracy of memory which writing has destroyed, he was
unfolding, down to the very last farthing, the entire account of
payments and receipts during his master's absence, the debtor and
creditor account being preserved as perfectly as if he had always had a
pen in his huge fingers, and studied book-keeping by double or single
entry.

On the return of the two boys with such an apparently respectable member
of society as the handsome well-dressed personage who accompanied them,
little Dennet, who had been set to sew her