Let them fill and drink in silence to the demise of an old friend, the vanished theatre, the first ever built in London. Then, happening to glance at Heminge as he poured out the wine--"Tut, Jack!" he spoke up sharply: "keep that easy rheum for the boards. Brush thine eyes, lad: we be all players here--or women--and know the trade." It hurt. If Heminge's eyes had begun to water sentimentally, they flinched now with real pain. This man loved Shakespeare with a dog's love. He blinked, and a drop fell and rested on the back of his hand as it fingered the base of his wine-glass. The apprentice saw and noted it. "And another glass, lads, to the Phoenix that shall arise! A toast, and this time not in silence!" shouted John Shakespeare, springing up, flask in one hand and glass in the other. Meat or wine, jest or sally of man or woman, dull speech or brisk--all came alike to him. His doublet was unbuttoned; he had smoked three pipes, drunk a quart of sack, and never once yawned. He was enjoying himself to the top of his bent. "Music, I say! Music!" A thought seemed to strike him; his eyes filled with happy inspiration. Still gripping his flask, he rolled to the door, flung it open, and bawled down the stairway-- "Ahoy! Below, there!" "Ahoy, then, with all my heart!" answered a voice, gay and youthful, pat on the summons. "What is't ye lack, my master?" "Music, an thou canst give it. If not----" "My singing voice broke these four years past, I fear me." "Your name, then, at least, young man, or ever you thrust yourself upon private company." "William Herbert, at your service." A handsome lad--a boy, almost--stood in the doorway, having slipped past John Shakespeare's guard: a laughing, frank-faced boy, in a cloak slashed with orange-tawny satin. So much the apprentice noted before he heard a second voice, as jaunty and even more youthfully shrill, raised in protest upon the stairhead outside. "And where the master goes," it demanded, "may not his page follow?" John Shakespeare seemingly gave way to this second challenge as to the first. "Be these friends of thine, Will?" he called past them as a second youth appeared in the doorway, a pretty, dark-complexioned lad, cloaked in white, who stood a pace behind his companion's elbow and gazed into the supper-room with eyes at once mischievous and timid. "Good-evening, gentles!" The taller lad comprehended the feasters and the disordered table in a roguish bow. "Good-evening, Will!" He singled out Shakespeare, and nodded. "My Lord Herbert!" The apprentice's eye, cast towards Shakespeare at the salutation given, marked a dark flush rise to the great man's temples as he answered the nod. "I called thee 'Will,'" answered Herbert lightly. "You called us 'gentles,'" Shakespeare replied, the dark flush yet lingering on either cheek. "A word signifying bait for gudgeons, bred in carrion."