2nd Dowager Messenger:  There must be something gone wrong in the stars, our own young princes having gone wild out of measure, and these young vagabonds doing no less than house-breaking!  It is hard to live!

Ogre:  Indeed, ma’am, it would be a great blessing to the world if all the boys in it could be born grown up.

Guardian:  (Sighing.) I, myself, am beginning to have that same opinion.

1st Dowager Messenger:  And so am I myself.  Young men have strength and beauty, and old men have knowledge and wisdom, but as to boys!  After what we saw a while ago in the supper room!

Servant:  The Court is about to sit!  Take your places!

(Wrenboys make for the dock and Princes the jury-box.)

Guardian:  What do you mean, prisoners, going up there, that is the place for honourable men!  For a jury!  It is here in the criminals’ dock your place is.

Servant:  (To Wrenboys.) Oh, that is the wrong place you’re in.  That is for the wicked and the poor that are brought to be tried and condemned.

1st Wrenboy:  It is a place the like of that I was put one time I was charged before a magistrate for snaring rabbits.

Servant:  Silence in the Court.  The Judge is about to speak.

Guardian:  (Reading out of book.)
It’s laid down in a clause of the Cretian laws,
That were put through a filter by Solon,
That for theft the first time, though a capital crime
A criminal may keep his poll on. 
Though (consults another book) some jurists believe
That a wretch who can thieve,
Has earned a full stop, not a colon.

Ogre:  That was said by a better than Solon.

Guardian: 
And the book says in sum, to cut off the left thumb,
May be penalty enough for a warning;
Though (looks at another book) the Commentors say
That one let off that way
Will be thieving again before morning.

Ogre:  So he will, and the jury suborning.

Guardian: For the second offence, as the crime’s more immense, Take the thumb off the right hand instead; And the third time he’ll steal, without any appeal, The hangman’s to whip off his head.

Ogre:  Very right to do so, for a thief as we know, Isn’t likely to steal when he’s dead.

2nd Dowager Messenger:  You won’t order the worst, as this crime is the first, It’s a pity if they have to swing.

Guardian:  In the Commentors’ sense, a primal offence Is as much an impossible thing As a stream without source, a blow struck without force, Or leaves without roots in the spring.

Ogre:  Or a catapult wanting a sling.