And so, I pray you, tell him: furthermore,

I pray you, show my youth old Shylock's house.

GRA. That will I do.

NER.

Sir, I would speak with you.

[Aside to PORTIA.

I'll see if I can get my husband's ring,

Which I did make him swear to keep forever.

POR. [Aside to NER.] Thou mayst, I warrant. We shall have old swearing

That they did give the rings away to men;

But we 'll outface them, and outswear them too.

[Aloud.] Away! make haste: thou know'st where I will tarry.

NER. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house? [Exeunt.

THE END

DRAMATIC VERSION OF "THE ROMAN ROAD" *

THE BOY. [Turning to his little sister CHARLOTTE, who has come running after him.] Where's Harold?

CHARLOTTE. Oh, he 's just playing muffin-man, as usual. Fancy wanting to be a muffin-man on a whole holiday!

THE BOY. He 'll play it all day, now he has begun. And Edward, where is he?

CHARLOTTE. He's coming along by the road-not the Knights' Road that leads to Rome-but the one by the pond. He'll be crouching in the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and spring out on us, only you must n't say I told you, 'cos it 's to be a surprise.

THE BOY. Humph! That is as stupid as Harold with his muffins! [Starts to walk off in the opposite direction.] CHARLOTTE. Where are you going?

THE BOY. To Rome.

CHARLOTTE. Oh-oh!

THE BOY. I shall go down the Knights' Road and maybe I shall meet Lancelot and his peers pacing on their great war horses-and after a while I shall come to that

*From "The Golden Age" by KENNETH GRAHAME. Copyright by John Lane Company.

strange road Miss Smedley told us about in a history lesson.

CHARLOTTE. I don't remember about it.

THE BOY. It runs right down the middle of England till it reaches the coast, and it then begins again in France, just opposite, and so on undeviating, through city and vineyard, right from the Misty Highlands to the Eternal City, Rome. That was what she told us.

CHARLOTTE. Edward says that some one told him that all roads lead to Rome.

THE BOY. I often try to imagine what it will be like when I get there. The Coliseum is there I know from the wood-cut in the history-book. And then the other cities near -Damascus, Brighton (Aunt Eliza's ideal), Athens,-and Glasgow, whose glories the gardener sings. [Beginning to walk away.] Oh, I shall see them all and Rome. [Walks on down the Knights' Road until he comes upon an artist. He spends five minutes studying his appearance.]

THE ARTIST. Fine afternoon we 're having; going far to-day?

THE BOY. No, I'm not going any farther than this. I was thinking of going to Rome; but I 've put it off.

THE ARTIST. Pleasant place, Rome, you 'll like it. But I would n't go just now, if I were you,—too jolly hot. THE BOY. You have n't been to Rome, have you?

THE ARTIST. Rather. I live there.

THE BOY. [In great astonishment.] You don't really live there, do you?

THE ARTIST. [Goodnaturedly.] Well, I live there as much as I live anywhere-about half the year sometimes. I've got a sort of shanty there. You must come and see it some day.

THE BOY. But do you live anywhere else as well?

THE ARTIST. O yes, all over the place. And I 've got a diggings somewhere off Piccadilly.

THE BOY. Where 's that?

THE ARTIST. Where 's what? Oh, Piccadilly! It's in London.

THE BOY. Have you a large garden,-and how many pigs have you got?

THE ARTIST. [Sadly.] I've no garden at all and they don't allow me to keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard.

THE BOY. But what do you do all day, then, and where do you go and play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?

THE ARTIST. When I want to play, I have to go and play in the street; but it 's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he 's very proud.

THE BOY. Goats are proud. There's one lives near here, and if you say anything to him at all, he hits you in the wind with his head. You know what it feels like when a fellow hits you in the wind?

THE ARTIST. [In a tone of proper melancholy.] I do, well.

THE BOY. And have you been to any other places besides Rome and Piccy-what 's-his-name?

THE ARTIST. Heaps. I'm a sort of Ulysses-seen men and cities, you know. In fact, about the only place I never got to was the Fortunate Island.

THE BOY. [Confidentially.] Would n't you like to find a city without any people in it at all?

THE ARTIST. [Puzzled.] I'm afraid I don't quite understand.

THE BOY. [Eagerly.] I mean a city where you walk in at the gates, and the shops are all full of beautiful things, and the houses furnished as grand as can be, and there is n't anybody there whatever! And you go into the shops, and take anything you want-chocolates and magiclanterns and injirubber balls-and there 's nothing to pay; and you choose your own house and live there and do just as you like, and never go to bed unless you want to!

THE ARTIST. [Laying down his brush.] That would be a nice city,-better than Rome. You can't do that sort of thing in Rome or in Piccadilly either. But I fear it 's one of the places I 've never been to.

THE BOY. And you 'd ask your friends, only those you really like, of course,-and they 'd each have a house to themselves, there 'd be lots of houses,-and no relations at all, unless they promised they'd be pleasant, and if they were n't they'd have to go.

THE ARTIST. So you would n't have any relations? Well, perhaps you 're right. We have tastes in common, I see.