and poets."

"Thinkest to don thy master's wit with his livery?" snapped the
poetaster. "'Tis a chain for a man,--too heavy for thy wearing."

The boy stretched his arms again. "'Master' no more than in reason,"
quoth he. "I also am a gentleman. Heigho! The sun shineth hotter here
than in the doldrums!"

"Well, go thy ways for a sprightly crack!" said the citizen, preparing
to go his. "I know them now, for my cousin Parker hath a venture in the
_Mere Honour_, and that is the great ship the Queen hath lent Sir John,
his other ships being the _Marigold_, the _Cygnet_, and the _Star_, and
they're all a-lying above Greenwich, ready to sail on the morrow for the
Spanish Main."

"You've hit it in the clout," yawned the boy. "I'll bring you an emerald
hollowed out for a reliquary--if I think on't."

Within-doors, in the Triple Tun's best room, where much sherris sack was
being drunk, a gentleman with a long face, and mustachios twirled to a
point, leaned his arm upon the table and addressed him whose pledge had
been so general. "_Armida gardens_ and _silver-singing mermaiden_ and
_Aphrodite England_ quotha! _Pike and cutlass and good red gold!_ saith
the plain man. O Apollo, what a thing it is to be learned and a maker
of songs!"

Athwart his laughing words came from the lower end of the board a deep
and harsh voice. The speaker was Captain Robert Baldry of the _Star_,
and he used the deliberation of one who in his drinking had gone far and