“Why, here, here, Ben Jonson,” spoke up Master Burbage, “this is all very well for Will and thee; but, pray, where do Hemynge, Condell, and I come in upon the bill?  Come, man, ’tis a pity if we cannot all stand together in this real play as well as in all the make-believe.”

“That’s my sort!” cried Master Hemynge.  “Why, what?  Here is a player’s daughter who has no father, and a player whose father will not have him,—­orphaned by fate, and disinherited by folly,—­common stock with us all!  Marry, ’tis a sort of stock I want some of.  Kind hearts are trumps, my honest Ben—­make it a stock company, and let us all be in.”

“That’s no bad fancy,” added Condell, slowly, for Henry Condell was a cold, shrewd man.  “There’s merit in the lad beside his voice—­that cannot keep its freshness long; but his figure’s good, his wit is quick, and he has a very taking style.  It would be worth while, Dick.  And, Will,” said he, turning to Master Shakspere, who listened with half a smile to all that the others said, “he’ll make a better Rosalind than Roger Prynne for thy new play.”

“So he would,” said Master Shakspere; “but before we put him into ’As You Like It,’ suppose we ask him how he does like it?  Nick, thou hast heard what all these gentlemen have said—­what hast thou to say, my lad?”

“Why, sirs, ye are all kind,” said Nick, his voice beginning to tremble, “very, very kind indeed, sirs; but—­I—­I want my mother—­oh, masters, I do want my mother!”

At that John Combe turned on his heel and walked out of the gate.  Out of the garden-gate walked he, and down the dirty lane, setting his cane down stoutly as he went, past gravel-pits and pens to Southam’s lane, and in at the door of Simon Attwood’s tannery.

* * * * *

It was noon when he went in; yet the hour struck, and no one came or went from the tannery.  Mistress Attwood’s dinner grew cold upon the board, and Dame Combe looked vainly across the fields toward the town.

But about the middle of the afternoon John Combe came out of the tannery door, and Simon Attwood came behind him.  And as John Combe came down the cobbled way, a trail of brown vat-liquor followed him, dripping from his clothes, for he was soaked to the skin.  His long gray hair had partly dried in strings about his ears, and his fine lace collar was a drabbled shame; but there was a singular untroubled smile upon his plain old face.

Simon Attwood stayed to lock the door, fumbling his keys as if his sight had failed; but when the heavy bolt was shut, he turned and called after John Combe, so that the old man stopped in the way and dripped a puddle until the tanner came up to where he stood.  And as he came up Attwood asked, in such a tone as none had ever heard from his mouth before, “Combe, John Combe, what’s done ’s done,—­and oh, John, the pity of it,—­yet will ye still shake hands wi’ me, John, afore ye go?”