“What’s to do?” said Carew.  “Why, I’ve told ye what’s to do.  Ye’ve heard Will say, ’There is a tide leads on to fortune if ye take it at the flood’?  Well, Master Alleyn, here’s the tide, and at the flood.  I have offered you an argosy.  Will ye sail or stick in the mud?  Ye’ll never have such a chance again.  Come, one fourth over my old share, and I will fill your purse so full of gold that it will gape like a stuffed toad.  His is the sweetest skylark voice that ever sugared ears!”

“But, man, man, one fourth!”

“Better one fourth than lose it all,” said Carew.  “But, pshaw!  Master Ned Alleyn, I’ll not beg a man to swim that’s bent on drowning!  We will be at the play-house this afternoon; mayhap thou’lt have thought better of it by then.”  With a curt bow he was off through the crowd, Nick’s hand in his own clenched very tight.

They had hard work getting down the steps, for two hot-headed gallants were quarreling there as to who should come up first, and there was a great press.  But Carew scowled and showed his teeth, and clenched his poniard-hilt so fiercely that the commoners fell away and let them down.

Nick’s eyes were hungry for the printers’ stalls where ballad-sheets were sold for a penny, and where the books were piled along the shelves until he wondered if all London were turned printer.  He looked about to see if he might chance upon Diccon Field; but Carew came so quickly through the crowd that Nick had not time to recognize Diccon if he had been there.  Diccon had often made Nick whistles from the pollard willows along the Avon below the tannery when Nick was a toddler in smocks, and the lad thought he would like to see him before going back to Stratford.  Then, too, his mother had always liked Diccon Field, and would be glad to hear from him.  At thought of his mother he gave a happy little skip; and as they turned into Paternoster Bow, “Master Carew,” said he, “how soon shall I go home?”

Carew walked a little faster.

There had arisen a sound of shouting and a trampling of feet.  The constables had taken a purse-cutting thief, and were coming up to the Newgate prison with a great rabble behind them.  The fellow’s head was broken, and his haggard face was all screwed up with pain; but that did not stop the boys from hooting at him, and asking in mockery how he thought he would like to be hanged and to dance on nothing at Tyburn Hill.

[Illustration:  “Diccon had often made Nick whistles from the willows along the Avon when Nick was A toddler.”]

“Did ye hear me, Master Carew?” asked Nick.

The master-player stepped aside a moment into a doorway to let the mob go by, and then strode on.

Nick tried again:  “I pray thee, sir—­”

“Do not pray me,” said Carew, sharply; “I am no Indian idol.”