Then there was the servant who, in his lord's absence, got above his business, assumed the master, became drunken in the company of roisterers, and beat his fellow-servants; but was at last put to shame by the sudden and unexpected arrival of his master. This servant was a veritable Jaques who, in the old play, assumed to be his master, the Duke, and who was likewise brought to grief by his master's return: "I must appear important; big as a country pedagogue when he enters the school-room with a-hem, and terrifies the apple-munching urchins with the creaking of his shoes. I'll swell like a shirt bleaching in a high wind; and look as burly as a Sunday beadle when he has kicked down the unhallowed stall of a profane old apple-woman. Bring my chair of state!" There are other characters, such as the shrewd laborer who, digging in a field, finds a hidden treasure and secreting it goes and buys the field; the unjust judge who finally, completely tired out, gives way in no very amiable mood to the widow's unceasing petitions for justice; the timid soul, who, fearing to use his talent, hid it in a napkin and buried it in the earth; the self-righteous Pharisee who recounts his good deeds before the Lord of the Temple and complacently congratulates himself that he is not as other men! "God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get!" Mr. Pecksniff once more!--so satisfied with himself, "so radiant with ingenuous honesty that Mrs. Lupin almost wondered not to see a stained-glass glory, such as the saint wore in the church, shining about his head!" VI. In the introduction, reference was made to the words of Mr. Shorthouse which suggested this investigation. This seems a fitting place to present the only example in which Mr. Shorthouse has carried out his own suggestion,--the Parable of the Prodigal Son. "But is it trite that there is no humor in the gospels? 'What strokes of nature, if not of humor,' to use Mr. Addison's words again, may we find in the story, let us say, of the Prodigal Son? What, in the light of the modern conception of humor, will come out of this? Here, surely, there is no want of real life, of low life, even. Here is a wild young scamp, as like Tom Jones as heart could wish. Here is ingratitude, forgetfulness of parents, riotous living, taverns, harlots, what not? Then beggary, and feeding swine, and living upon husks. Then when evil living is found not to answer, penitence--like Tom Jones again.