her means on earth to save him, they, the boys, having
unsuccessfully attempted all: how upon that Richard had tried with the
utmost earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope round her
own person: and Ripton had aired his eloquence to induce her to secrete
the file: how, when she resolutely objected to the rope, both boys began
backing the file, and in an evil hour, she feared, said Dame Bakewell,
she had rewarded the gracious permission given her by Sir Miles Papworth
to visit her son, by tempting Tom to file the Law. Though, thanks be to
the Lord! Dame Bakewell added, Tom had turned up his nose at the file,
and so she had told young Master Richard, who swore very bad for a young
gentleman.

"Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close of his explosions,
"the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world possesses. May I
never be where there are no boys! A couple of boys left to themselves
will furnish richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No: no Art
arrives at the artlessness of nature in matters of comedy. You can't
simulate the ape. Your antics are dull. They haven't the charming
inconsequence of the natural animal. Lack at these two! Think of the
shifts they are put to all day long! They know I know all about it, and
yet their serenity of innocence is all but unruffled in my presence.
You're sorry to think about the end of the business, Austin? So am I! I
dread the idea of the curtain going down. Besides, it will do Ricky a
world of good. A practical lesson is the best lesson."

"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns good or evil from it
is the question at stake."

Adrian stretched his length at ease.

"This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's fruit, hateful
to the palate of youth! for which season only hath it any nourishment!
Experience! You know Coleridge's capital simile?--Mournful you call it?
Well! all wisdom is mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do love
the Comic Muse. Their own high food would kill them. You shall find great
poets, rare philosophers, night after night on the broad grin before a
row of yellow lights and mouthing masks. Why? Because all's dark at home.
The stage is the pastime of great minds. That's how it comes that the
stage is now down. An age of rampant little minds, my dear Austin! How I
hate that cant of yours about an Age of Work--you, and your Mortons, and
your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals all of you,