’Well, I don’t know.’ ’Well, if you don’t you will.’ ’I look on women as as good as men.’ ’Now, that’s the kind of talk that makes me ill. When have they been as good? I ask you when?’ ’Always they have.’ ’They haven’t. Now and then P’raps one or two was neither hen nor fury.’ ’One for your mother, that. Here comes the jury.’ Guilty. Thumbs down. No hope. The judge passed sentence; ’A frantic passionate youth, unfit for life, A fitting time afforded for repentance, Then certain justice with a pitiless knife. For her his wretched victim’s widowed wife, Pity. For her who bore him, pity. (Cheers.) The jury were exempt for seven years.’ All bowed; the Judge passed to the robing-room, Dismissed his clerks, disrobed, and knelt and prayed As was his custom after passing doom, Doom upon life, upon the thing not made. ’O God, who made us out of dust, and laid Thee in us bright, to lead us to the truth, O God, have pity upon this poor youth. Show him Thy grace, O God, before he die; Shine in his heart; have mercy upon me, Who deal the laws men make to travel by Under the sun upon the path to Thee; O God Thou knowest I’m as blind as he, As blind, as frantic, not so single, worse, Only Thy pity spared me from the curse. Thy pity, and Thy mercy, God, did save, Thy bounteous gifts, not any grace of mine, From all the pitfalls leading to the grave, From all the death-feasts with the husks and swine. God, who hast given me all things, now make shine Bright in this sinner’s heart that he may see. God, take this poor boy’s spirit back to Thee.’ Then trembling with his hands, for he was old, He went to meet his college friend, the Dean, The loiterers watched him as his carriage rolled. ’There goes the Judge,’ said one, and one was keen: ’Hanging that wretched boy, that’s where he’s been.’ A policeman spat, two lawyers talked statistics, ’"Crime passionel" in Agricultural Districts.’ ’They’d oughtn’t hang a boy’: but one said ’Stuff. This sentimental talk is rotten, rotten. The law’s the law and not half strict enough, Forgers and murderers are misbegotten, Let them be hanged and let them be forgotten. A rotten fool should have a rotten end; Mend them, you say? The rotten never mend.’ And one ’Not mend? The rotten not, perhaps. The rotting would; so would the just infected. A week in quod has ruined lots of chaps Who’d all got good in them till prison wrecked it.’ And one, ’Society must be protected.’ ’He’s just a kid. She trapped him.’ ’No, she didden.’ ’He’ll be reprieved.’ ’He mid be and he midden.’ So the talk went; and Anna took the train, Too sad for tears, and pale; a lady spoke Asking if she were ill or suffering pain? ’Neither,’ she said; but sorrow made her choke, ’I’m only sick because my heart is broke. My friend, a man, my oldest friend here, died. I had to see the man who killed him, tried.