“A damned play lines no purses,” said Marlowe.
“Pay me my pound, I say.”
“For what? To frank you to the stews? A man were a fool so to accommodate his rival.”
“Ah! You fear my rivalry.”
“I fear the woman’s cupidity, sir. If Kit with gold, the better; but gold at any price, says she. So they compound. Will you take a post-obit?”
“I want my money, Kit Marlowe.”
“How the parrot repeats! No, on my honour, Frank, on my honour. I am drunk out. Should I not otherwise have been before you with the girl? I cannot pay.”
A shadow darkened the lattice, and Archer, on the point of retorting, paused with his mouth open. Some stranger, attracted by the colloquy, had stopped to listen. He came round now by the open porch and entered the room.
“By your favour, sirs,” he said, “I overheard a name to whose possessor methought I owed a duty. Was not it Master Marlowe’s, the playwright’s.”
Christopher nodded, without rising.