Don’t say that, don’t blaspheme, don’t attack the Faith, mad lads! I always mean to repent, but put off the evil day of reformation so long as health lasts. Conscience and sack struggle in me for the mastery, and the conflict makes me thirsty and so sack wins. But no scorners or blasphemers, say I. SHAKESPEARE: We’re all godly at heart; eh, Chettle? We all wish other men virtuous, so that there’ll be more frolic for us. CHETTLE: Ha! Ha! You’re right, lad! [_To the drawer._] Another cup, you bodkin, you radish, you—Ah, we are all sinners, Will, villainous sinners! [_He drinks._] SELDEN: I incline to the new faith. These puritans are much in earnest, though they go too far. One of them told me of late that actors should be outlawed, for they were not mentioned in the Bible. [_Laughs._] CHETTLE: [_Interrupting._] Why didn’t you reply that tailors weren’t mentioned there, either, and so the crophead knave himself should go naked. MARSTON: Wonder of wonders! Chettle is learned in the Scriptures. LACY: Our catechist in pious phrases, man, our doctor of divinity. DEKKER: He knows more of tavern reckonings! He! He! CHETTLE: Why not, lad, why not? The animal man must keep a balance. SELDEN: Religion is like the fashion; one man wears his doublet slashed, another laced, another plain, but every man has a doublet and a religion. CHAPMAN: [_Pompously._] ’Tis easy to mock at things sacred; but without religion there’d be no society. Be Protestant or Catholic, as you will; but without either we’d fall into anarchia. JONSON: Hum! I don’t know—What do you say, Shakespeare? SHAKESPEARE: If all our rushlights went out, the sun would still be shining. LACY: Oh, Shakespeare! What a blessed union of wit and poetry like virtue and beauty in a maid or a Toledo blade hafted to one Chrysolite. CHETTLE: I have a story, Ben, my bully boy, that you’ve not heard yet, a story of Will Shakespeare. Dick Burbage knows it. Ha! Ha! MARSTON: If new, let’s hear it. DEKKER: If old, it’s better than Chapman’s mouthing. CHETTLE: The pretty mercer’s wife, who often has a room to see the play, made a meeting with King Richard III, Dick Burbage, there. Quiet Will overheard the appointment, and after the play followed the lady. Poor Dick, having to change his robes, came late, and knocked. “Who’s there?” asked Will, from the inside. “Richard III,” whispered Dick. “Ah,” quoth Will, “Richard III comes after William the Conqueror.” Ho! ho! ho! SELDEN: So the sportive blood of youth beflecks the dignity of manhood! DEKKER: ’Tis too pat to be true. FLETCHER: We poets are all given to Venus. CHAPMAN: How true that Venus story is, and how beautiful. We shall never equal the Greeks; never; they were our masters in everything. CHETTLE: Masters indeed! Here’s Shakespeare would put down any of them in anything. JONSON: I’m not sure of that, Chettle. The Agamemnon’s a great play. CHETTLE: