The two new-comers were Mr. Greville and his _alter ego_ Mr. Philip Sidney, the latter already the _preux chevalier_ of his age. Though now in no more than his twenty-seventh year, his world-knowledge and accomplishments exceeded those of most contemporary gallants. Tall, spare, with a rather long melancholy face full of sweetness and intelligence, his whole aspect conveyed an assurance of reasonableness and liberality. His hair, warm yellow and somewhat sleek, was parted at one side into the long love-lock in vogue; his doublet and trunk-hose were of a sober grey but laced with a rich frilling of gold. So was his own quiet nature veined with light. A poet and scholar, a traveller and man of action, a courtier in the worthiest sense, some paltry squabble thrust upon him had banished him latterly from the side of the sovereign to whom his qualities were most endeared, and he was only present in Greenwich on a private affair during the absence of the Court. His friend and coetanian, the Lord Brooke to be--he who came to desire of posterity no greater recognition than that he had been Shakespeare’s friend--was a young man of like learning, sincerity, and skill in arms. “Why, Nick,” quoth Sidney, “the alternative is certain. But whereby hangs the halter?” “Round my neck,” answered Blount. “He seeks to throttle me, this learned clerk here, with his sophistications.” The three gentlemen sat down, the student remaining standing. “How throttle?” said Sidney. Jack Sparrow took the answer out of the soldier’s mouth: “We were discussing your friend, Master Raleigh, sirs, whom the Captain here will dub the very thief of opportunity.” “And hold to it,” said Blount. “Nay,” said the ex-graduate, “when, as I maintain and repeat, Opportunity is the common property, whereby to take it is no more offence in a man than the picking of blackberries on the highway.” “Or the picking of pockets,” said Mr. Greville. “Hold, Fulke,” said Sidney: “I do perceive a flaw there, in that the seizure or prehension is by its very terms held personal to the appropriator. Thus I may take _my_ opportunity, but not another man’s.” “Well decreed, Phil,” cried the soldier, with a shout of triumph, and smacked a hand to his knee. “How now, Master Quiddity? Wilt answer to that?” “With submission, Mr. Sidney,” replied the student, “is not all opportunity yours when you see it? _Oblatam occasionem tene_: the warrant of Cicero is in the phrase.” “The very offering, my friend, implies a priority of ownership by another; wherefore, if I seize another man’s opportunity uninvited, I am guilty of a moral felony.” “But supposing he, that other, omits or refuses to make use of his own?” persisted the student, with his tongue in his cheek.