he broidery, Aunt--the broidery!" returned Jack. "Four pound is a
reasonable charge enough. Marry, I do ensure you, my sometime Lord of
Leicester was wont to pay ten pound the piece for his shirts."

"I would I had been his shirt-maker!" said Rachel. "'Twould have built
up my fortune."

"What wist thou touching broidery, Jack?" demanded Lady Enville, with
her silvery laugh.

"Go to!" said Sir Thomas, taking up the next bill. "`Five score of silk
stockings, broidered, with golden clocks [Note 1], twenty-six and
eight-pence the pair.'--Those be necessaries, belike, Jack?"

"Assuredly, Sir. White, look you--a pair the day, or maybe two."

"Ha!" said his father. "`Item, one short coat, guarded with budge
[lambskin], and broidered in gold thread, 45 pounds.--Item, one long
gown of tawny velvet, furred with pampilion [an unknown species of fur],
and guarded with white lace, 66 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence.'--
Necessaries, Jack?"

"Mercy preserve us!" ejaculated Rachel.

"Good lack, Sir Thomas!--the lad must have gear!" urged his step-mother.

Sir Thomas laid down the bills.

"Be so good, Jack, as to tell me the full figures of these counts?"

"Good sooth, Sir! I have not added them," replied Jack in a
contemptuous tone. "A gentleman is ne'er good at reckoning."

"He seems to be reasonable good at spending," said his father. "But how
much, Jack, dost guess they may all come to?"

"Really, Sir, I cannot say."

"Go to--give a guess."

"Marry--somewhere about five thousand pound, it may be."

According to the equivalent value of money in the present day, Jack's
debts amounted to about seventy-five thousand pounds. His father's
yearly income was equal to about six thousand.

"How lookest thou to pay this money, Jack?" asked Sir Thomas, in a tone
of preternatural calmness which argued rather despair than lack of
annoyance.

"Well, Sir, there be two or three fashions of payment," returned Jack,
airily. "If you cannot find the money--"

"I cannot, in very deed, lad."

"Good," answered Jack quite complacently. "Then--if I win not the
monopoly--"

"The monopoly would not pay thy debts under fifty years, Jack; not if
thou gavest every penny thereof thereto, and hadst none fresh to pay.
How about that, lad?"

"Of course I must live like a gentleman, Sir," said Jack loftily. "Then
the next way is to win the grant of a wardship."

This way of acquiring money is so entirely obsolete that it needs
e