I know not the
signification of honesty."

"But I must play, Sir!" replied Jack--in the tone with which he might
have said, "I must breathe."

"Then thou must pay," said Sir Thomas shortly.

"Must play, quotha!" interjected Rachel. "Thou must be a decent lad,--
that is all the must I see."

"Come, be not too hard on the lad!" pleaded Lady Enville, fanning
herself elegantly. "Of course he must live as other young men."

"That is it, Madam!" responded Jack eagerly, turning to his welcome
ally. "I cannot affect singularity--'tis not possible."

"Of course not," said Lady Enville, who quite agreed with Jack's
sentiments, as women of her type generally do.

"Thou canst affect honesty, trow," retorted Rachel.

"Sir," said Jack, earnestly addressing his father, "I do entreat you,
look on this matter in a reasonable fashion."

"That is it which I would fain do, Jack."

"Well, Sir,--were I to put my trade-debts before my debts of honour, all
whom I know should stamp me as no gentleman. They should reckon me some
craftsman's son that had crept in amongst them peradventure."

"Good lack!" said his step-mother and aunt together,--the former in
dismay, the latter in satire.

"I am willing that any should count me no gentleman, if he find me not
one," answered his father; "but one thing will I never do, and that is,
give cause to any man to reckon me a knave."

"But, Sir, these be nought save a parcel of beggarly craftsmen."

"Which thou shouldst have been, had it so pleased God," put in Aunt
Rachel.

"Aunt," said Jack loftily, "I was born a gentleman; and under your good
leaves, a gentleman I do mean to live and die."

"Thou hast my full good leave to live and die a gentleman, my lad," said
his father; "and that is, a man of honour, truth, and probity."

"And 'tis no true man, nor an honourable, that payeth not his just
debts," added Rachel.

"I cry thee mercy, Rachel; a gentleman never troubleth him touching
debts," observed Lady Enville.

"In especial unto such like low companions as these," echoed Jack.

"Well!--honesty is gone out of fashion, I reckon," said Rachel.

"Only this will I say, Sir," resumed Jack with an air of settling
matters: "that if you will needs have my trade-debts defrayed before my
debts of honour, you must, an't like you, take them on yourself. I will
be no party to such base infringement of the laws of honour."

"Good lack, lad! Thou talkest as though thy father had run in