"Marry, it is," admitted Master Francis, "if one had but the fancy."
"Oh, as to that," returned the other, "I'll warrant when your blood ran hot from the full caldron of lip-scalding youth, thy fancy played you many a pretty mask, for young imagination dreams more dreams than waking age doth have the wit to write. These conjure up again, unbar your closet, unlock your treasure chest—" Here Master Francis gave a start, but the player went on heedlessly: "By my faith, yon rascal coffer well might be the grave wherein the best of thee lies buried."
He made a motion of the hand toward the box of the departed Christopher, and Master Francis's visage in the candle-light turned pale.
"What ails you, man?" the other inquired. "Have you a memory of that last tobacco pipe?"
"Sir," cried Master Francis, rising slowly to his feet, "is it the truth that a play can be sold for so much money?"
"In the Queen's coin," the other answered. "So that it be worth the playing, so it be such a play as Kit could have written."
Master Francis, taking up the candle, moved toward the chest.
"I'll take you at your word," he said. "Like one who creeps with shrouded lanthorn and with muffled spade to force the moldering hinges of the gate of Death, I'll bring you back a play."