‘Tut! tut! why, that of course; but, dear me, how behindhand you are. One would really have thought as an old friend, however little interest you take in these matters for their own sake, that you would have kept abreast with us so far. Why, this receipt here has been found since then, with a memorandum in the bard’s own hand, “Receipt forre moneyes givenne me bye the talle Hemynge onne accounte o’ the Curtain Theatre.”’
‘I did not happen to have heard of it,’ said Dennis, regarding the new-found treasure, if not with indifference, certainly with some lack of rapture.
‘Well, now you see it,’ continued Mr. Erin with irritation. ‘Of course it disposes of all doubt in that direction. But now, forsooth, the note of hand is objected to upon the ground of its seals.’
‘Good heavens!’ ejaculated Dennis, and this time it was evident that he was really moved.
‘No wonder you are indignant. I now remember that I drew your particular attention to the document in question. Well, it is almost incredible that their accusation has shrunk to the puny charge that a note of hand, even in Shakespeare’s time, would not have had seals appended to it. Is it not amazing that human nature can stoop to such detraction? If it had been Malone—a mere reptile—who makes a point of the Globe being a theatre instead of a playhouse—but this is some lawyer it seems, a child of the Devil, I’ll warrant, like the rest of his craft.’
Considering that William Henry, now Mr. Erin’s ‘dear Samuel,’ had been articled to a conveyancer with the idea of becoming a lawyer himself when full grown, this was a somewhat sweeping as well as severe remark; but, carried away by the torrent of his wrath, the speaker was wholly unconscious of this little inconsistency.
‘As if every one did not know,’ he continued—’not to mention the fact that in Malone’s own prolegomena the Curtain Theatre is so called in Stackwood’s sermon, A.D. 1578—that in the Elizabethan times every one not only spelt as he liked, and differently at different times, but appended seals to their documents or did without them, as opportunity served. Is it not even probable that Hemynge, being a player and knowing little of business, may have been particularly solicitous of every form of law being observed, however superfluous, and in even so small a matter? Is it not in accordance, I ask, with what we know of human nature that it should be so?’
It was clear that this was no extempore speech, nor even a discourse the claims of which could be satisfied by pen and ink, but one very evidently intended to be printed. Its deliverance gave Frank Dennis time to recover from a certain dismay into which Mr. Erin’s communication had thrown him.
‘Just so,’ he said; ‘you are right, no doubt. The objection as to its being contrary to custom to append seals seems frivolous enough.’
‘And the ground has been cut away from the first, you see, in all other directions,’ exclaimed the antiquary triumphantly. ‘Margaret,’ he continued in high good humour as his niece entered the room, ‘permit me to introduce to you a convert. Mr. Frank Dennis has been hitherto little better than a sceptic, but the light of truth is beginning to dawn upon him through crannies. He has been moved to confess that the note of hand at least is genuine. I have a letter to write before the post goes out, so will leave him in your hands to continue the work of conversion.’