"Perfectly," returned Master Cramboy.
"And do you approve?" inquired the head-bailiff.
"Ahem," said the mercer, "'Speak that I may know thee,' saith the proverb; proceed;" and the bailiff read another verse.
"Fie! fie!" said Master Teazle, "what stuff is here? My service to you, my masters all, and a merry Christmas. How say you now to making Master William Shakespeare master of the free school,—eh?"
"Shall I proceed any further?" inquired the head-bailiff.
"Not a line," said Cramboy. "I feel quite scandalized. What a depraved taste the Court must have! Allow me, however to look at the binding of this volume," and Cramboy quietly noted down where the book was to be bought in order that he might procure and read it as soon as he could, the rest of the company quietly following his example.
"Well," said John Peto, the tanner, "after all what is fame? Here hath our fellow-townsman gained much celebrity by such matter as we have heard. Trash, my masters; lies, conjured up by the fumes of sack and Canary. Marry, the lad hath a quick wit, I dare be sworn, but how he hath gotten himself into the good graces of the powerful by such matter I marvel."
"I remember me," said Master Richard Coomb, (who was known amongst his co-mates by the sobriquet of Thin Beard, from the circumstance of his wearing a starved cane-coloured beard), "I remember me that our townsman, John Shakespeare, father of this William, had from his youth upwards, a quick and shrewd wit. Nay, by 'ur Lady, he must be about my own age; by the same token I played oft-times with him when he was a boy and living with his father at Snitterfield."
"Aye," said Mumble, "he came to Stratford from Snitterfield. He held lands there when he was better off. Did'st know Richard Shakespeare, grandfather to this William? He was well to do, and had lands and beeves at Snitterfield."
"I did know him," returned Coomb; "that is, I do remember me of him. By 'ur Lady, a proper man of his hands as ever you would wish to look on,—aye, and a pleasant man to speak with too."