The elder brother, with his easy, tolerant air waved the lad to a seat, and shouted for the drawer, or waiter. "Anon, anon, Sir!" and that functionary hastened up. The _Mermaid_ was emptying now, and the attendants were less hurried and flurried. Shakespeare ordered in a second dinner--for, little though he had eaten, the food was cold: and, patting his brother affectionately on the shoulder, slipped a handful of money into his hand. "Ay, marry, thou hast a good Warwickshire hunger and thirst, Ned," said he, "let it not cry out upon thee in vain. For me, I am away to the _Globe_. They play _Hamlet_ there to-day, and needs must I be present." He did not wait for thanks, but, with his peculiarly pleasant smile, slipped out of the _Mermaid_, and made haste towards his theatre. * * * * * "Like the three wanderers in Arden, against the bole of a huge oak." _Touchstone_. The more fool I, to be in Arden! (_As You Like It_). [Illustration: ROSALIND, CELIA AND TOUCHSTONE. _Painting by Hugh Thomson._] The _Globe_ was already crowded when he arrived, although the play did not begin till three (there were no evening performances in those days, except in noblemen's private theatres). Burbage, the favourite tragedian, as _Hamlet_, drew a great following: but the humble part played by the author himself as _Rosencrantz_ was a _succès d'estime_ rather than a genuine one--for Mr. William Shakespeare was no very wonderful actor. "A fellowship in a cry of players" held little glamour for him. The man who could imagine, with every vivid circumstance of detail, the sinister and foreboding atmosphere of Elsinore, had little admiration for the "strutting and bellowing" of the players who interpreted his visions....