"Will the armourer take both of you?" asked Mistress Randall.

"Nay, it was only for Stephen we devised it," said Ambrose.

"And what wilt thou do?"

"I wish to be a scholar," said Ambrose.

"A lean trade," quoth the jester; "a monk now or a friar may be a
right jolly fellow, but I never yet saw a man who throve upon
books!"

"I had rather study than thrive," said Ambrose rather dreamily.

"He wotteth not what he saith," cried Stephen.

"Oh ho! so thou art of that sort!" rejoined his uncle. "I know
them! A crabbed black and white page is meat and drink to them!
There's that Dutch fellow, with a long Latin name, thin and weazen
as never was Dutchman before; they say he has read all the books in
the world, and can talk in all the tongues, and yet when he and Sir
Thomas More and the Dean of St. Paul's get together at my lord's
table one would think they were bidding for my bauble. Such
excellent fooling do they make, that my lord sits holding his
sides."

"The Dean of St. Paul's!" said Ambrose, experiencing a shock.

"Ay! He's another of your lean scholars, and yet he was born a