t the servant was checked. He thought of his
lord and of the reckoning, and he remembered the words, "As good stewards
of the manifold grace of God;" and he had almost determined to turn back,
and to fight his way to the market-place, and to trade for his lord, let
it cost him what it might;--but just at the moment there was a great
burst of the showman's trumpets; and he heard the people shouting for joy
within; and so he forgot all but his great desire, and slipping off the
bundle from his shoulders, he put it into the hands of the porter, and
passed in, and I saw him no more.

Then I saw another, who was standing at the corner of a street gating at
some strange antics which were being played by a company of the townsmen.
And as he gazed upon them, he forgot all about his trading for his
master, and thought only of seeing more of this strange sight. Then I
saw that whilst he was thinking only of these follies, some evil-minded
men gathered round him, and before he was aware of it, they secretly
stole from him all the gold which his lord had given him to lay out for
him. The servant did not even know when it was gone, so much was he
thinking of staring at the sight before him. But it made me very sad to
think that when he went to buy for his master, he would find out, too
late, his loss; and that when the trumpet sounded, he would have nothing
to carry back with him on the day of reckoning.

Some of these loiterers, too, were treated even worse than this. One of
them I saw whom the shows and lights of that town led on from street to
street, until he came quite to its farther end; and then he thought that
he saw before him, beyond some lonely palings, still finer sights than
any he had left; and so he set out to cross over those fields, and see
those sights. And when he was half over, some wicked robbers, who laid
wait in those desolate places, rushed out upon him from their lurking-
place, and ill used him sorely, and robbed him of all his goods and
money, and left him upon the ground hardly able to get back to the town
which he had left.

Then I saw one of these loiterers who, as he was looking idly at the
sights round him, grew very grave, and began to tremble from head to
foot. One of his fellows, who stood by and saw him, quickly asked him
what made him tremble. At first he could not answer; but after a while
he said, that the sound of the trumpet which they had just heard had made
him think of the great