Two things must be done, and they must be done speedily. It was imperative for the Lord Chamberlain’s players to leave Oxford at once. And an efficient substitute for Parflete must be found immediately if the comedy was to be given in its integrity before the Queen on the Thursday following. In the stress of these urgent matters, the playwright took counsel of Richard Burbage. That worthy was in the middle of a substantial if belated breakfast. “In the first matter, I agree with you,” he said, upon hearing what his colleague had to say. “There will be security for none of us until we are out of Oxford, and perhaps not even then. As to who is to play _Rosalind_ now that Parflete is sick, heaven help us but I know not.” “Tarbert might play the part,” said the author of the comedy. “He has a light womanish voice, but then his legs do not match and he has no more grace than a soused mackerel. As I see my sweet _Rosalind_, she should be all grace and limberness, all delicacy, tenderness and fantasy.” “Yes, I grant you it would be asking too much of Tarbert,” said the tragedian, addressing himself very seriously to a quart of ale. “It would be asking too much of any of us except Parflete. I am afraid, William Shakespeare, this is going to be a sad detriment to your play.” The playwright agreed. “With a good _Rosalind_,” he said, “the play might pass. But without a good _Rosalind_, it is like to be a plaguy poor thing. I confess I had Parflete in my mind from the first. The lad has not yet had scope for his talent. He is a youth of most excellent refined wit and very neat and comely besides. I am sure if Gloriana could but have seen him as _Rosalind_ to young Warburton’s _Celia_, she would have been very well pleased with him.” “Yes, and with the play, too,” said Burbage. “’Tis a thousand pities. For between ourselves, my William, if _Rosalind_ fails us, there is mighty little substance in our new comedy to set before such an appetite as Gloriana’s.” “That’s true enough,” said the playwright, gloomily. “And a writer is a fool who leans too heavily on a single character. Yet I love that sweet saucy quean, but God help us all if Tarbert plays her.” “Would it offend Gloriana if you put on one of your older pieces?” “Yes, accursedly--you know that, Dick, well enough. It is her whim to have something entirely new as a midsummer masque, and if she is fobbed off with an old thing, we shall none of us ever be forgiven.” “‘Measure for Measure’ she has not seen.” The playwright shook his head. “It moves too slow for Gloriana,” he said. “It is too much the work of the apprentice. And she’d smell out its weakness before we were half through the first act, for that crabbed old woman--whom God protect!--has got the keenest nose in the realm in matters dramatical. The old harridan is wonderful in some ways.” The tone of the playwright was more reverent than the words it expressed.