"Now, then, come. The first five!" said Friar Bacon. "Where are
you?"
"Order!" cried a merry-faced little man, who had brought his young
daughter with him to see life, and who always modestly hid his face
in his beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business.
"John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, Cecil Robin,
and Thomas Linnet!" cried Friar Bacon.
"Here, sir!" and "Here, sir!" And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush,
and Nightingale, stood confessed.
We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by this written paper, that
each of us is responsible for the repayment of this pig-money by
each of the other. "Sure you understand, Nightingale?"
"Ees, sur."
"Can you write your name, Nightingale?"
"Na, sur."
Nightingale's eye upon his name, as Friar Bacon wrote it, was a
sight to consider in after years. Rather incredulous was
Nightingale, with a hand at the corner of his mouth, and his head on
one side, as to those drawings really meaning him. Doubtful was
Nightingale whether any virtue had gone out of him in that committal
to paper. Meditative was Nightingale as to what would come of young
Nightingale's growing up to the acquisition of that art.
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