h unmistakable delight. "You have the
accidence!" he exclaimed. "Then could I study the tongue even while
working for you! Sir, I would do my best! It is the very opportunity I
seek."

"Fair and softly," said the printer with something of a smile. "Thou
art new to cheapening and bargaining, my fair lad. Thou hast spoken not
one word of the wage."

"I recked not of that," said Ambrose. "'Tis true, I may not burthen
mine uncle and aunt, but verily, sir, I would live on the humblest fare
that will keep body and soul together so that I may have such an
opportunity."

"How knowst thou what the opportunity may be?" returned Lucas, drily.
"Thou art but a babe! Some one should have a care of thee. If I set
thee to stand here all day and cry what d'ye lack? or to carry bales of
books 'twixt this and Warwick Inner Ward, thou wouldst have no ground to
complain."

"Nay, sir," returned Ambrose, "I wot that Tibble Steelman would never
send me to one who would not truly give me what I need."

"Tibble Steelman is verily one of the few who are both called and
chosen," replied Lucas, "and I think thou art the same so far as green
youth may be judged, since thou art one who will follow the word into
the desert, and never ask for the loaves and fishes. Nevertheless, I
will take none advantage of thy youth and zeal, but thou shalt first
behold what thou shalt have to do for me, and then if it still likes
thee, I will see thy kindred. Hast no father?"

Ambrose explained, and at that moment Master Hansen's boy made his
appearance, returning from an errand; the stall was left in his charge,
while the master took Ambrose with him into the precincts of what had
once been the splendid and hospitable mansion of the great king-maker,
Warwick, but was now broken up into endless little tenements with their
courts and streets, though the baronial ornaments and the arrangement
still showed what the place had been.

Entering beneath a wide archway, still bearing the sign of the Bear and
Ragged Staff, Lucas led the way into what must have been one of the
courts of offices, for it was surrounded with buildings and sheds of
different heights and sizes, and had on one side a deep trough of stone,
fed by a series of water-taps, intended for the use of the stables. The
doors of one of these buildings was unlocked by Master Hansen, and
Ambrose found himself in what had once perhaps been part of a stable,
but had been partitioned off from t