rcical 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,
base materialists! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your Age of Work?
Listen!

'An Age of betty tit for tat,
An Age of busy gabble:
An Age that's like a brewer's vat,
Fermenting for the rabble!

'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax
To virtuous abuses:
Whose gentlemen and ladies wax
Too dainty for their uses.

'An Age that drives an Iron Horse,
Of Time and Space defiant;
Exulting in a Giant's Force,
And trembling at the Giant.

'An Age of Quaker hue and cut,
By Mammon misbegotten;
See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!
And mark the Kings of Cotton!

'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd,
A Future staggers crazy,
Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd
With woeful weed and daisy!'"

Murmuring, "Ge