"Sure," said he, musing, "they don't lift and pack away the stage every night, do they? Or is this some new law to harass players?" He brought his attention back to the apprentice with an effort. "If you feel that way towards him, lad," he answered, "why not accost him? He walks London streets; and he has, if I remember, a courteous, easy manner." "If the man and his secret were one! But they are not, and there lies the fear--that by finding one I shall miss the other and recover it never. I cannot dare either risk: I want them both. You saw, this afternoon, how, when the secret came within grasp, the man slipped away; how, having taught us to know Falstaff as a foot its old shoe, he left us wondering on a sudden why we laughed! And yet 'twas not sudden, but bred in the play from the beginning; no, nor cruel, but merely right: only he had persuaded us to forget it." The countryman put up a hand to hide a yawn: and the yawn ended in a slow chuckle. "Eh? that rogue Falstaff was served out handsomely: though, to tell the truth, I paid no great heed to the last scene, my midriff being sore with laughing." The apprentice sighed. "But what is happening below?" the other went on impatiently. "Are they taking the whole theatre to pieces?" "That is part of the play." "A whole regiment of workmen!" "And no stage-army, neither. Yet they come into the play--not the play you saw without understanding, but the play you understood without seeing. They call it _The Phoenix_. Be seated, master, while I unfold the plot: this hammering deafens me. The Burbages, you must know----" "I knew old James, the father. He brought me down a company of players to our town the year I was High Bailiff; the first that ever played in our Guildhall. Though a countryman, I have loved the arts--even to the length of losing much money by them. A boon fellow, old James! and yet dignified as any alderman. He died--let me see--was it two year agone? The news kept me sad for a week." "A good player, too,"--the apprentice nodded,--"though not a patch upon his son Richard. Cuthbert will serve, in ripe sententious parts that need gravity and a good memory for the lines. But Richard bears the bell of the Burbages. Well, Sir, old James being dead, and suddenly, and (as you say) these two years come February, his sons must go suing to the ground landlord, the theatre being leased upon their dad's life. You follow me?" The countryman nodded in his turn.