not in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company meanwhile could do no harm.
'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute your opinions.'
Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a moment.
'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when we can sit in the chaise.'
'Very true,' answered Wogan.
Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his pocket. He read the dedication once more:
'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of wind.'
'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied Wogan triumphantly.
'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of wine, which he opened.
'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more charitable light.'
He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while pouring it:
'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied his glass.
'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to his own, which was no more than half empty.
'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
'Oh, she's a nymph!'
'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment kirtled up to her knees.'
'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only, unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and chuckled.
'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in full glasses.'
He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings of Smilinda's hair.'
'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call her hair catgut.'
Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the dust.
'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to assist.
'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper. He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses, 'is no rhyme to obedience.'
'Allegiance—obedience—obedience—allegiance,' repeated Wogan as clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to say.'
Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's witticism.
'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the Cocoa Tree—though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise. 'Obedience—allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith, Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.' He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has some warmth in his merriment—and some warmth in his bottle too.' He stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have tasted—the best joke I have heard—the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over
