He had stopped his ears during the scene of King Henry's reconciliation with Chief Justice Gascoigne, and unstopped them eagerly again when his old friends reappeared--Falstaff and Bardolph and Pistol, all agog and hurrying, hot-foot, boot-and-saddle, to salute the rising sun of favour. "Welcome these pleasant days!" He stamped and clapped, following his neighbours' lead, and also because his feet and hands were cold. Eh? What was the matter? Surely the fog had taken hold of the rogues! What was happening to Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet? Poor souls, they were but children: they had meant no harm. For certain this plaguy fog was infecting the play; and yet, for all the fog, the play was a play no longer, but of a sudden had become savagely real. Why was this man turning on his puppets and rending them? The worst was, they bled--not sawdust, but real blood. The apprentice cracked a nut and peeled it meditatively, with a glance along the bench. The countryman still fugled; the cutpurse cackled, with lips drawn back like a wolf's, showing his yellow teeth. "Hist, thou silly knave!" said the apprentice. "Canst not see 'tis a tragedy?" The rascal peered at him for a moment, burst out laughing, and nudged the countryman. "Hi, master! Breeds your common at home any such goose as this, that cannot tell tickling from roasting?" The apprentice cracked another nut. "Give it time," he answered. "I said a tragedy. Yours, if you will, my friend; _his_ too, may be"--with a long and curious stare at the countryman. II "_My tongue is weary: when my legs are too, I will bid you good-night: and so kneel down before you; but indeed to pray for the Queen._" Play, epilogue, dance, all were over; the curtains drawn, the lanterns hidden behind them. The cutpurse had slipped away, and the countryman and apprentice found themselves side by side waiting while the gallery dissolved its crowd into the fog. "A brisk fellow," remarked the one, nodding at the vacant seat as he stowed away his handkerchief. "But why should he guess me a rustic?" "The fellow has no discernment," the apprentice answered dryly. "He even took the play for a merry one." The countryman peered forward into the young-old face silhouetted against the glow which, cast upward and over the curtain-rod across the stage, but faintly reached the gallery. "I love wit, Sir, wherever I meet it. For a pint of sack you shall prove me this play a sad one, and choose your tavern!" "I thank you, but had liefer begin and discuss the epilogue: and the epilogue is 'Who's to pay?'" "A gentleman of Warwickshire, Master What-d'ye-lack--will that content you? A gentleman of Warwickshire, with a coat-of-arms, or the College's promise--which, I take it, amounts to the same thing." The countryman puffed his cheeks. "So-so?" The apprentice chuckled. "_When we mean to build We first survey the plot, then search our pockets._