"Thou art alive enough now," said Basset. "But how knowest that I never fell from a rock into the sea?" Jack answered by a graceful flourish of his hands, and a stave of another song. "`There's never a maid in all this town But she knows that malt's come down, - Malt's come down,--malt's come down, From an old angel to a French crown.'" "I would it were," said Basset, folding his arms beneath his head. "I am as dry as a hornblower." "That is with blowing of thine own trumpet," responded Jack. "I say, Tremayne! Give us thy thoughts for a silver penny." "Give me the penny first," answered the meditative officer. "Haven't an obolus," [halfpenny] confessed Jack. "`The cramp is in my purse full sore, No money will bide therein--'" "Another time," observed Arthur Tremayne, "chaffer [deal in trade] not till thou hast wherewith to pay for the goods." "I am a gentleman, not a chapman," [a retail tradesman] said Jack, superciliously. "Could a man not be both?" "'Tis not possible," returned Jack, with an astonished look. "How should a chapman bear coat armour?" "I reckon, though, he had fathers afore him," said Basset, with his eyes shut. "Nought but common men," said Jack, with sovereign contempt. "And ours were uncommon men--there is all the difference," retorted Basset. "Yours were, in very deed," said Jack obsequiously. This was, in truth, the entire cause of Jack's desire for Basset's friendship. The latter, poor fellow! imagined that he was influenced by personal regard. "Didst think I had forgot it?" replied Basset, smiling. "Ah! if I had but thy lineage!" answered Jack. "Thine own is good enough, I cast no doubt. And I dare say Tremayne's is worth something, if we could but win him to open his mouth thereon." Jack's look was one of complete incredulity. Arthur neither moved nor spoke. "Hold thou thy peace, Jack Enville," said Basset, answering the look, for Jack had not uttered a word. "What should a Lancashire lad know of the Tremaynes of Tremayne? I know somewhat thereanent.--Are you not of that line?" he asked, turning his head towards Arthur. "Ay, the last of the line," said the latter quietly. "I thought so much. Then you must be somewhat akin unto Sir Richard Grenville of Stow?" "Somewhat--not over near," answered Arthur, modestly. "Forty-seventh cousin," suggested Jack, not over civilly. "And to Courtenay of Powderham,--what?" "Courtenay!" broke in Jack. "What! he that, but for the attainder, should be Earl of Devon?" "He," responded Basset, a little mischievously, "that cometh in a right line from the Kings of France, and (through women) from the Emperors of Constantinople." "What kin art thou to him?" demanded Jack, surveying his old playmate from head to foot, with a sensation of respect which he had never felt for him before. "My father's mother and his mother were sisters, I take it," said Arthur. "Arthur Tremayne, how cometh it I never heard this afore?"