“Last act! All ready for the last act,” rang out in Dick’s familiar voice from the stage-door as she ended. It was well some one thought of the play and of the audience in waiting.
Many of the players hastily departed to take up their cues; but not so Nell. Her eyes were upon the lordly Buckingham, who was endeavouring to effect a crafty exit.
“Not so fast, my lord,” she said as she caught his handsome cloak and drew him back into the room. “I want you with me.” She looked coyly into his lordship’s face as though he were the one man in all the world she loved, and her curls and cheek almost nestled against his rich cloak. “A dozen, did you say? What a heart you have, my lord. A bountiful heart!”
Buckingham was dazed; his eyes sought Nell, then looked aghast at the oranges she would force upon him. The impudence of it!
“A dozen!” he exclaimed in awe. “’Slife, Nelly; what would I do with a dozen oranges?”
“Pay for them, in sooth,” promptly replied the vixen. “I never give a lord credit.”
The player-folk gathered closer to watch the scene; for there was evidently more fun brewing, and that too at the expense of a very royal gentleman.
“A player talk of credit!” replied his lordship, quite ironically, as he straightened up proudly for a wit-encounter. “What would become of the mummers, if the lords did not fill their empty pockets?” he said, crushingly.
“What would become of the lords, if the players’ brains did not try to fill their empty skulls with wits?” quickly retorted Nell.
“If you were a man, sweet Nelly, I should answer: ‘The lords first had fools at court; then supplanted them with players!’”