He stooped, and lifting the lid seized the first manuscript that met his hand and waved it triumphantly at his companion sitting on the table.
"A play!" cried the other, catching at the roll. "Ah, then I guessed aright. 'Tis a dull writer, fitted best for slumber-wooing churchmen's homilies, who has not in his time chucked blushing Thalia under her fair chin.... What have we here?" he demanded, spreading the pages open before him. "A play, indeed! A comedy, i' faith! Gadslid, a tragedy! A miracle of masterpieces, a masterpiece of miracles! 'Twill be the talk of London town and in the ages yet to come, when stately playhouses shall stand where now the painted savage cleaves his enemy, your play shall win the coy and cautious coin of nations yet unborn, your fame—"
"Peace, peace!" protested Master Francis, with a smile that would have done credit to his uncle, the Lord Treasurer, "you are like a paid praisemonger who bawls loudest to extol the book he has not read."
"'Tis my prophetic soul," returned the player merrily, and waving the scroll above his head he went on: "Hear ye, hear ye, good servants of the Queen, here's meat for your digestions, matter for your minds; here's wit and wisdom, prose and poetry, to make ye swear that brave Kit Marlowe walks the earth again.... Come, gossip, write your name upon the title sheet. You are too modest."
"My name I may not sell," said Master Francis, holding back.
"Unnatural parent!" roared the other. "Would you thus turn your offspring loose upon the world without parentage?"
"I'll not be father to a brat so ill-begotten," replied Master Francis.
"How shall I answer then to Burbage should he ask the writer?" demanded the player.
"As you may," returned Master Francis with a shrug. "An't please you, say it was yourself. I care not, so my name be not revealed."