What I'm saying partly because nobody else did, and also because since they published the folio from Master William's plays the only part about my Willis the flouting jibes in Hamlet, because also nobody reads Nine Days Wonder what I had a hack write, with Will Kempe his name on it for writing it, because this man was my freund and the greatest comical talent ever before and also since even if he was a wencher and a shikker the worst, and now nobody cares or knows bupkes zilch about—and who else to tell excepting me, Pincus Perlmutter, who still knows and cares, sure now just a alter kocker even if I'm no schnorrer telling this to beg a almshouse handout from nobody, who else?

        Listen, I'm telling from Will Kempe the mensch even if he was also a wencher and a shikker the worst, who could of been my landsman from shtetl we were so close like blood-born brothers, so I'll tell from him and his dancing, from how he and also me got famous in London and also all Queen Bess's realm with the Chamberlain's Players at the Globe, how Master W.S. was turning us out like persons couldn't pay a tavern reckoning even if we sold our shares in his theater to him, and from the nine days marathon Morris dare-journey to Norwich I'll tell, a true wonder, and being honest how we didn't from not my fault dancing across the Alp mountains from France into Italy, all the way to the time he starb in my arms I'll tell.

        And from me some, who he called Pinky and pearl and Sweet Jew mine, I'll also tell some. Alter kocker I am now, a long white beard, my hands shake and I can't hold my water so good, and worse I got pain always from the stone I think it is I can't pass in my water. But I was the first impresario in Bess's England realm, which is a word I learned from the Italians who came to make fine music at Court—this I'll tell some. Tochis am tisch we said in shtetl, total honest!

        What I'm telling—listen!

An earlier version of this chapter was published in American Literary Review.