"What do you mean?" stammered Mr. Plumber.
"I base my statement on a letter which I have this morning received from the editor of Skittles. In it that great man informs me that he will take care that no more of Mr. Plumber's contributions appear in the paper which he edits."
Mr. Plumber went white to the lips.
"What do you mean?" he repeated.
Mr. Ingledew looked the curate full in the face. As Mr. Plumber met his glance, he cowered as if Mr. Ingledew's words had been so many blows with a stick.
"Can you not guess my meaning, Mr. Plumber? Were you not aware that there are such things as literary detectives? In future, I would advise you to remember that there are. Directly I saw those verses I knew that you had stolen them. I happened to have the original in my possession. I sent that original to the editor of Skittles. The letter to which I have referred is his response. The verses which you sent to him as yours are no more yours than my watch is. Are you disposed contradict me, Mr. Plumber?"
The curate was silent--with a silence which was eloquent.
"Mr. Plumber has given a sufficient answer," said Mr. Ingledew, as the curate continued speechless. He turned to the vicar. "This is not one of those cases of remote plagiarism which abound: it is a case of clear theft, which are not so frequent. Mr. Plumber sent to this paper what was, to all intents and purposes, a copy of another man's work. He claimed it as his own. He received payment for it as if it had been his own. If he chooses, the editor of Skittles can institute against him a criminal prosecution. If he does, Mr. Plumber will certainly be sentenced to a turn of imprisonment. As an example of impudent pilfering the affair is instructive. Perhaps, vicar, you would like to study it. Here are what Mr. Plumber calls his verses, and here are the verses from which his verses are stolen. As you will perceive, from a literary point of view, Mr. Plumber has merely perpetrated a new edition of another man's crime. Which is the worse, the original or the copy, is more than I can say. Here are the verses as they appeared in the peculiarly named paper of which you have, perhaps, already heard too much, and which, while it professes to be humorous, at least succeeds in being vulgar."
Mr. Ingledew handed Mr. Harding what was evidently a marked copy of the paper which, no doubt, has its attractions for those who like that kind of thing. Mr. Plumber remained silent. He leant on his stick. His eyes were fixed on the floor. The vicar seemed almost afraid to glance in his direction.
"And this," continued the softly speaking gentleman, who in spite of his carefully modulated tones, seemed destined to work the curate more havoc than the noisy parish mouthpiece, "is the publication in which the verses originally appeared. As you will see, it is a copy of a once-talked-of University magazine which is long since dead and done for. Possibly Mr. Plumber relied upon that fact to shield him from exposure."