IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 225

“Pull up thy rose-bushes, Will,” cried one, “and set
out laurels in their stead—thou ‘lt need them all for
crowns.”

“Ay, Will, our savor is not gone—Queen Bess knows
salt!”

“With Will and Ben for meat and crust, and the rest
of us for seasoning, the court shall say it never ate such
master pie!”

“We ’ll make the walls of Whitehall ring come New
Year next, or Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.”

“Ay, that we will, old gossip! Here ’s to thee!”

“Here ’s to the company, all of us!”

“And a health to the new Lord Chamberlain !”

“God save the Queen!”

With that, they shook each other’s hands, as merry as
men could be, and laughed, because their hearts ran short
of words; for these were young Lord Hunsdon’s men, late
players to the Queen in the old Lord Chamberlain’s troupe;
who, for a while deprived of favor by his death, were now,
by this succession of his son, restored to prestige at the
court, and such preferment as none beside them ever won,
not even the Earl of Pembroke’s company.

There was Kemp, the stout tragedian ; gray John Lowin,
the walking-man; Diccon Burbage, and Cuthbert his
brother, master-players and managers; Robin Armin, the
humorsome jester; droll Dick Tarlton, the king of fools.
There was Blount, and Pope, and Hemynge, and Thomas
Greene, and Joey Taylor, the acting-boy, deep in the heart
of a honey-bowl, yet who one day was to play “Hamlet”

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