Their Appointed Rounds by Adeline Adams — Read

Yet any wise observer of our poor dust would have known at once, on seeing the two travellers together, that the hand of art had been laid inevitably on each; lightly and graciously enough on the youth, rudely and ironically and with stripes and lashes on the man. Phœbus Apollo hardly knew, as yet, whether he should ever really need the boy Royal or not. However, he meant to lend the child his lute for a summer morning or two, and hear whatever trailing wisps of song those smooth young fingers could coax goldenly from its strings. Yes, Royal was a true probationer of Apollo. But with the man, the god would plainly have no more to do, except by way of bitter punishment. For the man was too old, too ill, too evil, even, to be of any further service in the temple of the Muses. Those ladies do not carry a pardoner's wallet. They have no pension system; uncompromising dames, the Nine, when all is told.

Little as he liked the looks of the man in his tumbled tweeds, Royal nevertheless gave him a good-day. Why not? The man enveloped the boy with a strange, hunted-yet-hunting glance, and after returning the salutation in a mannerly enough way, threw himself down heavily on the pleasant pine leaves, rather close to the spot that Royal had chosen for his own perfect seclusion with song. Our poet's second sight instantly declared that there was something wrong. What if this were the wretch who had really stolen the car whose loss had threatened the Royal liberties? Well, if so, that was the one-armed justice's affair, not Royal's. The boy had lately read in a newspaper that our Anglo-Saxon law presupposes the innocence of the accused, until proven guilty. An excellent idea! Fair play for all, then, including the disinherited.