On the day preceding poor Tom’s doomed appearance before the magistrate, Dame Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to Raynham immediately, and sought Adrian’s counsel upon what was to be done.  Homeric laughter and nothing else could be got out of Adrian when he heard of the doings of these desperate boys:  how they had entered Dame Bakewell’s smallest of retail shops, and purchased tea, sugar, candles, and comfits of every description, till the shop was clear of customers:  how they had then hurried her into her little back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and revealed the coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the point of a file from a serpentine recess in his jacket:  how they had then told the astonished woman that the rope she saw and the file she saw were instruments for the liberation of her son; that there existed no other 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