As became the shrewd man he was, Master Nicholas Tidey made no reply. He was content to nod his head gravely, as if he tacitly approved, while at the same time he contrived to keep a tail of an eye upon his distinguished friend. There might or there might not have been a ghost of a smile upon that prim and cautious mouth. Indeed, very wisely, Master Tidey left it to the play-actor himself to try a fall with such a formidable adversary. And this that daring individual proceeded to do in a manner quite cool and leisurely, and yet with a vastly considered air. In his eye, it was true, there was a suspicion of something far other than gravity. That of course was regrettable; but it was undoubtedly there. Mr. William Shakespeare’s first act was to remove his hat with its single short cock’s feather, and then he bowed very low indeed, in the manner of one quite well aware of addressing a social superior. “Cry you mercy, mistress,” he said, “but as one who is himself a poor actor may he ask wherein his guild has had the unhappiness to offend you?” Mistress Anne Feversham met this effrontery with a disdain that was wonderful. Her chief concern at the moment was to show her great contempt without a descent into downright ill-breeding. But as soon as she met the somber eyes of this individual, in which a something that was rare and strange was overlaid by a subtle mockery, this natural instinct took wings and fled. In those eyes was something that hardly left her mistress of herself, in spite of her father the Constable, her young blood-horse and her incomparable pair of galligaskins. “My father the Constable would have all play-actors whipped,” said Mistress Anne Feversham. But her voice was not as she had intended it to be. Moreover, her father the Constable had yet to deliver himself of such an illiberal sentiment. And this graceless individual seemed to be fully aware that this was the case. “Whipped, mistress!” His look of grave consternation did not deceive her. “You would whip a poor actor!” “All who are actors, sir, my father would.” “Is it conceivable?--the gentlest, the humblest, the most industrious, the most law-abiding of men!” “My father cares not for that, sir. He says they are masterless rogues.” “Then by my faith, mistress, that is very froward in your father.” “He says they are the scum of taverns and alehouses and they corrupt the public mind.” “Ods my life! how comes so crabbed a sire to have a daughter so fair, so feat, so charming!”