p and a mow, to the revel that ends
too soon,
For cockcrow limits our holiday--the dead of the night's
high-noon!

CHORUS. Ha! ha!
The dead of the night's high-noon!

And then each ghost with his ladye-toast to their churchyard beds
takes flight,
With a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps, and a grisly grim
"good-night";
Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell rings forth its
jolliest tune,
And ushers in our next high holiday--the dead of the night's
high-noon!

CHORUS. Ha! ha!
The dead of the night's high-noon!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!

ROB. I recognize you now--you are the picture that hangs at
the end of the gallery.
SIR ROD. In a bad light. I am.
ROB. Are you considered a good likeness?
SIR ROD. Pretty well. Flattering.
ROB. Because as a work of art you are poor.
SIR ROD. I am crude in colour, but I have only been painted
ten years. In a couple of centuries I shall be an Old Master,
and then you will be sorry you spoke lightly of me.
ROB. And may I ask why you have left your frames?
SIR ROD. It is our duty to see that our successors commit
their daily crimes in a conscientious and workmanlike fashion.
It is our duty to remind you that you are evading the conditions
under which you are permitted to exist.
ROB. Really, I don't know what you'd have. I've only been
a bad baronet a week, and I've committed a crime punctually every
day.
SIR ROD. Let us inquire into this. Monday?
ROB. Monday was a Bank Holiday.
SIR ROD. True. Tuesday?
ROB. On Tuesday I made a false income-tax return.
ALL. Ha! ha!
1ST GHOST. That's nothing.
2ND GHOST. Nothing at all.
3RD GHOST. Everybody does that.
4TH GHOST. It's expected of you.
SIR ROD. Wednesday?
ROB. (melodramatically). On Wednesday I forged a will.
SIR ROD. Whose will?
ROB. My own.
SIR ROD. My good sir, you can't forge your own will!
ROB. Can't I, though! I like that! I did! Besides, if a
man can't forge his own will, whose will can he forge?
1ST GHOST. There's something in that.
2ND GHOST. Yes, it seems reasonable.
3RD GHOST. At first sight it does.
4TH GHOST. Fallacy somewhere,