[Espies Stranger approaching.

  Hillo!  Not too near, ARTHUR! (Aside.) Whom have we here?

Polite Stranger (insinuatingly).  Beg pardon, my Lord! 
  A bit out of my track. 
  Missed my way.  But—­ahem!—­is that really the “crack”? 
  Why, he looks cherry ripe—­at a distance.  I’ve heard
  All sorts of reports—­gossips are so absurd! 
  But—­would you mind telling me—­has the Great Horse
  Been really—­got at? Entre nous, mind!—­

Noble Owner (drily).  Of course!
  Dissolution’s shy backers would much like to know. 
  But—­tell them who sent you to ask—­it’s no go!

    [Exit, leaving Polite Stranger plante la.

* * * * *

A LAY SERMON.

(SUGGESTED BY CERTAIN RECENT MANIFESTATIONS OF THE NONCONFORMIST
CONSCIENCE.)

  Thou shalt not steal!  That’s a command
  Which grips us with an iron hand;
  And “he who prigs what isn’t his’n,
  When he is cotched shall go to prison!”
  So runs the Cockney doggerel, clear
  If ungrammatical, austere,
  With not a saving clause to qualify
  Its rigid Spartan rule, or mollify
  Theft’s Nemesis.  Thou shalt not steal! 
  At least,—­ahem!—­well, all must feel
  That property in thoughts and phrases,
  The verbal filagree that raises
  Flat fustian into “oratory,”
  And makes the pulpit place of glory,
  Such property is not so easy
  To settle, and a conscience queasy
  O’er picking pockets, oft remains
  Quite unperturbed while—­picking brains!
  A Sermon is not minted coin;
  It you may borrow, buy, purloin,
  In part or wholly, and yet preach it
  As your own work.  Who’ll dare impeach it,
  This innocent transaction?  Not
  Your “brethren,” save, perchance, some hot
  And ultra-honest (which means “rancorous”)
  Parsonic rival.  “How cantankerous!”
  The reverend Assembly shouts. 
  It mocks at scruples, flames at doubts,
  Hints at the stern objector’s animus,
  In the prig’s praises is unanimous. 
  Oh, Happy Cleric Land, where unity
  Breeds such unquestioning community
  Of property—­in Sermons!  True it
  Strikes some as queer; but they all do it,
  If one may trust advertisement,
  And an Assembly’s calm content
  At what to the Lay mind seems robbery. 
  Steal?  Nay!  But do not raise a bobbery,
  If hard-up preachers glean their shelves
  And take the credit to themselves. 
  How wise, how good, how kind, how just! 
  And how the poor Lay mind must trust
  Those who so skilfully reveal
  The meaning of “Thou shalt not Steal!”

* * * * *