114 MASTER SKYLARK

All around the outer square were shops with gilded
fronts and most amazing signs: golden angels with out-
stretched wings, tiger heads, bears, brazen serpents, and
silver cranes; and in and out of the shop-doors darted
apprentices with new-bound books and fresh-printed slips ;
for this was old St. Paul’s, the meeting-place of London
town, and in Paul’s Yard the printers and the bookmen
dealt.

With a deal of elbowing the master-player came up the
broad steps into the cathedral, and down the aisle to the
pillars where the merchant-tailors stood with table-books
in hand, and there ordered a brand-new suit of clothes
for Nick of old Roger Shearman, the best cloth-cutter in
Threadneedle street.

While they were deep in silk and silver thread, Haerlem
linen, and Leyden camelot, Nick stared about him half
aghast; for it was to him little less than monstrous to see
a church so thronged with merchants plying their trades
as if the place were no more sacred than a booth in the
public square.

The long nave of the cathedral was crowded with mercers
from Cheapside, drapers from Throgmorton street, sta-
tioners from Ludgate Hill, and goldsmiths from Foster
lane, hats on, loud-voiced, and using the very font itself
for a counter. By the columns beyond, sly, foxy-faced
lawyers hobnobbed; and on long benches by the wall,
cast-off serving-men, varlets, grooms, pastry-bakers, and
pages sat, waiting to be hired by some new master. Be-
sides these who came on business there was a host of gal-