there at all but to show their faces
and their clothes. And all about were solemn shrines and monuments and
tombs, and overhead a splendid window burned like a wheel of fire in the
eastern wall.

While Nick stared, speechless, a party of the Admiral's placers came
strolling by, their heads half hidden in their huge starched ruffs, and
with prodigious swords that would have dragged along the ground had they
not been cocked up behind so fiercely in the air. Seeing Master Carew
and the boy, they stopped in passing to greet them gaily.

Master Heywood was there, and bowed to Nick with a kindly smile. His
companion was a handsome, proud-mouthed man with a blue, smooth-shaven
face and a jet-black periwig. Him Carew drew aside and spoke with in an
earnest undertone. As he talked, the other began to stare at Nick as if
he were some curious thing in a cage.

"Upon my soul," said Carew, "ye never heard the like of it. He hath a
voice as sweet and clear as if Puck had burst a honey-bag in
his throat."

"No doubt," replied the other, carelessly; "and all the birds will hide
their heads when he begins to sing. But we don't want him, Carew--not if
he had a voice like Miriam the Jew. Henslowe has just bought little Jem
Bristow of Will Augusten for eight pound sterling, and business is too
bad to warrant any more."

"Who spoke of selling?" said Carew, sharply. "Don't flatter your chances
so, Master Alleyn. I wouldn't sell the boy for a world full of Jem
Bristows. Why, his mouth is a mint where common words are coined into
gold! Sell him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay, Master
Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: I'll place him at the Rose, to do
his turn in the play with the rest of us, or out of it alone, as ye
choose, for one fourth of the whole receipts over and above my old share
in the venture. Do ye take me?"

"Take you? One fourth the whole receipts! Zounds! man, do ye think we
have a spigot in El Dorado?"

"Tush! Master Alleyn, don't make a poor mouth; you're none so needy. You
and Henslowe have made a heap of money out of us all."

"And what of that? Yesterday's butter won't smooth to-day's bread. 'Tis
absurd of you, Carew, to ask one fourth and leave all the risk on us,
with the outlook as it is! Here's that fellow Langley has built a new
play-house in Paris Garden, nearer to the landing than we are, and is
stealing our business most scurvily!"

Carew shrugged his shoulders.

"And what's more, the