And in a moment the pair were in hot pursuit after the quotation, tripping
each other up, like two schoolboys at a game. Taffy never forgot the
last stanza, the last line of which they recovered exactly in the middle
of the street, Velvet-cap standing between two tram-lines, right in the
path of an advancing car, while he declaimed—
"By penitence when we ourselves forsake,
'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven;
In praise—
(The gesture was magnificent)
In praise we nobly give what God may take,
And are without a beggar's blush forgiven.
—Damn these trams!"
The old clergyman shook hands with Taffy in some haste. "And when you
reach home give my respects to your father. Stay, you don't know my
name. Here is my card, or you'll forget it."
"Mine too," said Velvet-cap.
Taffy stood staring after them as they walked off down the lane which
skirts the Botanical Gardens. The names on the two cards were famous
ones, as even he knew. He walked back toward Trinity a proud and happy
boy. Half-way up Queen's Lane, finding himself between blank walls, with
nobody in sight, he even skipped.