THE ROSE PLAY-HOUSE 133

some one would hear him; but the apprentices in the pit
were rattling dice, and two or three gentlemen’s pages
were wrangling for the best places on the platform ; while,
to add to the general riot, two young gallants had brought
gamecocks and were fighting them in one corner, amid
such a whooping and swashing that one could hardly have
heard the skies fall.

A printer’s man was bawling, “Will ye buy a new
book?” and the fruit-sellers, too, were raising such a cry
of “ Apples, cherries, cakes, and ale!” that the little noise
Nick might make would be lost in the wild confusion.

Master Carew and the manager had not come out of the
tiring-room. Nick got up on the stool and looked out.
It was not very far to the ground—not so far as from the
top of the big haycock in Master John Combe’s field from
which he had often jumped.

The sill was just breast-high when he stood upon the
stool. Putting his hands upon it, he gave a little spring,
and balanced on his arms a moment. Then he put one
leg over the window-sill and looked back. No one was
paying the slightest attention to him. Over all the noise
he could hear the man tuning the viol. Swinging himself
out slowly and silently, with his toes against the wall to
steady him, he hung down as far as he could, gave a little
push away from the house with his feet, caught a quick
breath, and dropped.