116 MASTER SKYLARK

the boy for a world full of Jem Bristows. Why, his mouth
is a mint where common words are coined into gold! Sell
him? I think I see myself in Bedlam for a fool! Nay,
Master Alleyn, what I am coming at is this: Ill place
him at the Rose, to do his turn in the play with the rest
of us, or out of it alone, as ye choose, for one fourth of
the whole receipts over and above my old share in the
venture. Do ye take me?”

“Take you? One fourth the whole receipts? Zounds!
man, do ye think we have a spigot in El Dorado?”

“Tush! Master Alleyn, don’t make a poor mouth;
you ’re none so needy. You and Henslowe have made a
heap of money out of us all.”

“ And what of that? Yesterday’s butter won’t smooth
to-day’s bread. "Tis absurd of you, Carew, to ask one
fourth and leave all the risk on us, with the outlook as it
is! Here ’s that fellow Langley has built a new play-
house in Paris Garden, nearer to the landing than we are,
and is stealing our business most seurvily !”

Carew shrugged his shoulders.

“And what ’s more, the very comedy for which Ben
Jonson left us, because we would not put it on, has been
taken up by the Burbages on Will Shakspere’s say-so, and
is running famously at the Curtain.”

“T told you so, Master Alleyn, when the fellow was fresh
from the Netherlands,” said Carew; “but your ears were
plugged with your own conceit. Young Jonson is no
flatfish, if he did lay brick; he ’s a plum worth anybody’s
picking.”