The Poet's Diary Author:Alfred Austin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1 thief, whoever he was, had not taken all the apples, and that there were plenty left for our own consumption. Our Biographer said that fortunately it was no... more » business of his ; and I am afraid I hummed and hawed, and ended by suggesting that, if they would bring the culprit to me, I would give him, as they say, a good talking to, would ask the Rector of his parish to do the same, and then trust he would never do the like again. Veronica's sense of right and wrong was not to be evaded by these cowardly subterfuges, and, after rebuking us all round for our want of the commonest moral sense, she at once took possession of the case, expressed her resolve to get at the facts, and very soon laid before us evidence that was damning to the alleged culprit. Her next step was to point out that it was somebody's bounden duty to prosecute him ; and it was obvious that the somebody was my reluctant self. The poor fellow, as Lamia and I, a couple of non-moral creatures that we are, speak of him in private intercourse, was committed to the County Gaol, to expiate his offence. Lamia declared she would eat none of the remaining apples, they seemed to taste so ' nasty,' and to have become apples of the Dead Sea, and that she would do her best to prevent the Prosecutor also from having any. But at last she offered me one, rather shamefacedly; and, gathering another for herself, ' went for it' with a right good will, and, exclaiming, ' Oh, how good!' ' Oh, how juicy !' ' Oh, the best I ever ate !' set to work on another, and another still, imploring me to do the same. [As it is most likely that the Diarist has made no further entry concerning what he calls ' a rather painful incident,' but has forgotten all about it now that the apple ban has long been removed, I will narrate the sequel, whi...« less