A mess was before him and he was near in it.
A stroke swift and bold was the only plan waiting
By which he might hope for a safe extricating.
But while thus he was thinking the sage Abbot spoke,
He was three-fourths in earnest but one-fourth in joke—
"What, speechless! then guilty you are I'm quite sure;
For not proving innocent's guilty by law.
As the same author says, who lately I quoted,
Whose works for their truth and great clearness are noted."
"O, help me, dear Fiction!" soliloquised Peter,