Hyacinth: That won’t do. It’s a patriot I would be then, worse than before, with my picture in the weeklies. It’s a red crime I must commit that will make all respectable people quit minding me. What can I do? Search your mind now.
Fardy: It’s what I heard the old people saying there could be no worse crime than to steal a sheep——
Hyacinth: I’ll steal a sheep—or a cow—or a horse—if that will leave me the way I was before.
Fardy: It’s maybe in gaol it will leave you.
Hyacinth: I don’t care—I’ll confess—I’ll tell why I did it—I give you my word I would as soon be picking oakum or breaking stones as to be perched in the daylight the same as that bird, and all the town chirruping to me or bidding me chirrup——
Fardy: There is reason in that, now.
Hyacinth: Help me, will you?
Fardy: Well, if it is to steal a sheep you want, you haven’t far to go.
Hyacinth: (Looking round wildly.) Where is it? I see no sheep.
Fardy: Look around you.