He fell forward on the table with outstretched arms and clenched hands. Shakespere lifted him up; pityingly brushed back the hair from his face, and said: “Forget the matter for a moment.”
No other words were spoken; still the rain pattered on the window opening towards St. Michael’s, and no sounds came up from the narrow walks in Crooked Lane.
At length Tamworth broke the silence. “I do not doubt, dear Kit, that whatever may be thy aim, thy arrow will reach. But life can not be maintained without capital or revenue. Your design being linked with an ambition for personal immortality precludes the publication of thy productions till after thy death or when hope of life is gone. Now, where will come the fund for thy maintenance?”
“Thou canst not appear as an actor,” suggested Shakespere.
“And neither can the works you may produce be sold as thine,” said Peele.
“Could they not be sold under some one else’s name?” asked Marlowe. “At the proper time their authorship could be confessed and established.”
“But in whose name?” queried Peele.
“Why not thine; at least temporarily?”
“Bah,” ejaculated Peele, “I could not pass thy dramas off as mine. The style, my dear fellow, the style. Henslowe would at once say, ‘What Peele, this thy drama? Marry, and where didst thou steal this new fire? Off with thee. It is none of thine. Leave it. I will look up the older dramatists, Greek and Latin, from which I ween thou hast taken its entire,’”
“Then why not as thine, Shakespere?”