The playwright could not help smiling a little at a certain uneasiness which was apparent in the tone of his friend, in spite of the fact that that honest man tried very hard to conceal it. “If I said they had not, Master Tidey,” he answered, with dry modesty, “I might be speaking less than I know. On the other hand, if I said that they had, a needy writer for the stage might be claiming more than becomes the least of her Majesty’s servants.”
Master Tidey looked a little incredulous. “They do tell me, Master Shakespeare, that you make them out of your own head entirely. Master Burbage, who was here an hour ago to have new points set in his hose, swore it was so, by the beard of the prophet—facetiously, as I think. But I can hardly believe it, Master Shakespeare, not out of your own head, and that’s the fact. Why, I mind the time you was a little graceless runnion that used to play truant from Stratford Free School. Many’s the time I’ve seen you come sliding down Short Hill of a winter’s morning in your blue short coat, with your books falling out o’ your satchel as you dangled it behind you, and generally twenty minutes late for the muster. You were always a sharp lad, Master Shakespeare, I’m bound to say that although somewhat idly given, but I never thought you’d have had wit enough to make one of these interludes all out of your own head like book-learned men who have been bred at college.”
“It seems unlikely enough I grant you,” said the player discreetly. “And my pieces, such as they are, don’t compare of course with those of some I could mention—there is a young fellow by the name of Ben Jonson, and one of these days you’ll be able to contrive a whole garment for the best of us out of his sleeve ruffles. But I sometimes think, Master Tidey, when of an evening I’ve had a glass o’ clear spring water with a carroway-seed in it at the Mermaid Tavern, that if only he had had the singular good fortune to have been bred at Oxford or Cambridge, the world might one day have heard of William Shakespeare—but no matter! It will all be the same a hundred years hence.” The player laughed cheerfully. “We shall all be forgotten, and our interludes too, long before then.”
“Yes, Master Shakespeare, there can be no doubt about that,” said the tailor heartily. “And personally I thank God for it. I don’t hold with these masks and gallimaufries and such-like cloaks for wantonness, saving your presence. Still the Queen does, as I understand, and although I am much surprised at her, that’s a great matter. And that being the case I am bound to admit that for one who left the Stratford Free School at the age of thirteen with no more book-knowledge in his numskull than Daddy Jenkins could put there with his ferrule, and if, as I say, the Queen approves your interludes, and they are entirely out of your own head, as Master Burbage swears they are by the beard of the prophet—why, I am bound to admit that you bring little or no discredit upon your native parish.”
“You pay me a high compliment, Master Tidey,” said the actor. “And fain would I deserve it. But you will grieve to learn, I am sure, that the Queen has commanded the Lord Chamberlain’s servants to her palace at Richmond on the tenth of July, and moreover she desires a new piece from the pen of the least of them all. It would seem that, for some reason at present obscure, her Grace in her bounty is pleased to approve the nonsensical comedy of “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” which, between ourselves, is by no means the brightest of the performances from the hand of the rustical clown in question.”
In spite of the strictness of his tenets, Master Tidey could not forbear to be impressed. “You are indeed coming to great honors now,” said the tailor, whose worldly wisdom appeared to be in danger of overriding his high principles. “And it is not for me to deny that you have a talent—of a kind that is, Master Shakespeare. But at least, as you are a Stratford man like myself, I am glad to hear that there are those who think well of it. What will you put into your comedy, Master Shakespeare? Love, I presume, and all manner of wantonness?”
“Well, Master Tidey,” said the author, “since you ask the question, you can no more leave love out of a comedy than you can leave an apple out of a dumpling. Besides, it is Gloriana’s desire that I should make her a tale of love, that there should be youth in it and girlhood and high poesy—that is, if we can rise to poesy in this barren age! And it is Gloriana’s pleasure that it shall be played before her of a summer’s afternoon under the greenwood in Richmond Park.”
“You will be making your fortune one of these days, Master Shakespeare,” said the tailor, upon the verge of awe.
“That is as may be, Master Tidey. At least I would ask nothing better than to quit the stage. A man’s dignity and a player’s calling don’t ride well together. In the meantime must I tease my five wits to devise a play for Gloriana. And it must be made, alas! by the tenth of July.”
“I’d rather you had to do it than had I,” said the tailor, with a sigh of relief, as he took up the needle and shears.