_Imagination._ By the mass, I cannot show you, For he and I never drank together, Yet I know many an ale stake[46]. In the end, mainly through the personal appeal of his friend, Imagination too yields and accepts the guidance of Perseverance, Freewill transferring his allegiance to Contemplation. As Hick Scorner never returns, the double conversion brings the play to a close. Rising from the perusal of _Hick Scorner_ we confess that we have made a new acquaintance: we have met Imagination and have not left him until we have learnt a good deal about him; how he fled from a catchpole but lost his purse in the flight, how he and Hick Scorner were shackled together in Newgate without money to pay for an upper room, how brazen-faced his lies were, how near he was to hanging, how ingenious were his excuses, and many other facts besides. We have seen him, too, as the ringleader in mischief and the arrantest rogue in the play. Freewill and Hick Scorner make less impression on us; they are more cloudy in outline, more like types. As for Pity, Contemplation and Perseverance, they are merely talking-machines. We must keep an eye on Imagination, as possessing a dramatic value likely to be needed again. We shall have been disappointed in the plot. That part of the drama seems to be getting worse. Humankind was at least gaining fresh experience in _The Castell of Perseverance_; he was even besieged in a fortress and had the narrowest escape in the world from being carried off to Hell. Everyman's startling doom, his eager quest for a companion on his journey, and his zealous self-discipline keep us to the end in a state of concern for his ultimate fate. But what interest have we in Contemplation, Freewill and the rest, apart from what they say? No suggestion is thrown out at the beginning that two of the rogues are to be reclaimed: their fate concerns us not at all. The quarrel, and the ill-treatment of poor old Pity, are the merest by-play, with no importance whatsoever as a step in the evolution of a plot. Indeed it is open to question whether there is a plot. There are speeches, there is conversation, there is some scuffling, and there is a happy ending, but there is no guiding thread running through the story, no discernible objective steadily aimed at from the start. It looks as though the new interest in drawing (or seeing) a real human individual has monopolized the whole attention; that for the time being characterization has driven plot-building completely into the shade.