To be sure, he knew that the Lord Chamberlain’s men were still playing at the theater in Shoreditch; for Master Carew had taken Cicely there to see the “Two Gentlemen of Verona.”  But just where Shoreditch was, Nick had only the faintest idea—­somewhere away off by Finsbury Fields, beyond the city walls to the north of London town—­and all the wide world seemed north of London town; and the way thither lay through a bewildering tangle of streets in which the din and the rush of the crowd were never still.

From a hopeless chase like that Nick shrank back like a snail into its shell.  He was not too young to know that there were worse things than to be locked in Gaston Carew’s house.  It were better to be a safe-kept prisoner there than to be lost in the sinks of London.  And so, knowing this, he made the best of it.

But Master Shakspere was come back to town, and that was something.  It seemed somehow less lonely just to think of it.

Yet in truth he had but little time to think of it; for the master-player kept him closely at his strange, new work, and taught him daily with the most amazing patience.

[Illustration:  “NOBODY BREAKS NOBODY’S HEARTS IN OLD JO-OHN SMITHSES SHO-OP,’ DRAWLED THE SMITH, IN HIS DEEP VOICE; NOR STEALS NOBODY, NOTHER”]

He had Nick learn no end of stage parts off by heart, with their cues and “business,” entrances and exits; and worked fully as hard as his pupil, reading over every sentence twenty times until Nick had the accent perfectly.  He would have him stamp, too, and turn about, and gesture in accordance with the speech, until the boy’s arms ached, going with him through the motions one by one, over and over again, unsatisfied, but patient to the last, until Nick wondered.  “Nick, my lad,” he would often say, with a tired but determined smile, “one little thing done wrong may spoil the finest play, as one bad apple rots the barrelful.  We’ll have it right, or not at all, if it takes a month of Sundays.”

So, often, he kept Nick before a mirror for an hour at a time, making faces while he spoke his lines, smiling, frowning, or grimacing as best seemed to fit the part, until the boy grew fairly weary of his own looks.  Then sometimes, more often as the time slipped by, Carew would clap his hands with a boyish laugh, and have a pie brought and a cup of Spanish cordial for them both, declaring that he loved the lad with all his heart, upon the remnant of his honour:  from which Nick knew that he was coming on.

Cicely Carew’s governess was a Mistress Agnes Anstey.  By birth she had been a Harcourt of Ankerwyke, and she was therefore everywhere esteemed fit by birth and breeding to teach the young mind when to bow and when to beckon.  She came each morning to the house, and Carew paid her double shillings to see to it that Nick learned such little tricks of cap and cloak as a lady’s page need have, the carriage best fitted for his place, and how to come into a room where great folks were.  Moreover, how to back out again, bowing, and not fall over the stools—­which was no little art, until Nick caught the knack of peeping slyly between his legs when he bowed.