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Put case I circumvent and kill him: good.
Good riddance—wipes at least from book o' th' world
One ugly admiration-note-like blot—
Gives honesty more elbow-room by just
The three dimensions of one wicked knave.
But then slips in the plaguy After-voice.
“Wicked? Holloa! my friend, whither away
So fast? Who made you, Moses-like, a judge
And ruler over men to spare or slay?
A blot wiped off forsooth! Produce forthwith
Credentials of your mission to erase
The ink-spots of mankind—t' abolish ill
For being what it is, is bound to be,
Its nature being so—cut wizards off
In flower of their necromantic lives
For being wizards, when 'tis plain enough
That they have no more wrought their wizardship
Than cats their cathood.” Thus the plaguy Voice,
Puzzling withal not overmuch, for thus
I turn the enemy's flank: “Meseems, my friend,
Your argument's a thought too fine of mesh,
And catches what you would not. Every mouse
Trapped i' the larder by the kitchen wench
Might reason so—but scarcely with effect.
Methinks 'twould little serve the captured thief
To plead, ‘The fault's Dame Nature's, guiltless I.
Am I to blame that in the parcelling-out
Of my ingredients the Great Chemist set
Just so much here, there so much, and no more
(Since 'tis but question, after all is said,
Of mere proportion 'twixt the part that feels
And that which guides), so much proclivity
To nightly cupboard-breaking, so much lust
Of bacon-scraps, such tendency to think
Old Stilton-rind the noblest thing on earth?
Then the per contra—so much power to choose
The right and shun the wrong; so much of force
Of uncorrupted will to stoutly bar
The sensory inlets of the murine soul,
And, when by night the floating rare-bit fume
Lures like a siren's song, stop nostrils fast
With more than Odusseian sailor-wax:
Lastly so much of wholesome fear of trap
To keep self-abnegation sweet. Then comes
The hour of trial, when lo! the suadent scale
Sinks instant, the deterrent kicks the beam,
The heavier falls, the lighter mounts (as much
A thing of law with motives as with plums),
And I, forsooth, must die simply because
Dame Nature, having chosen so to load
The dishes, did not choose suspend for me
The gravitation of the moral world.’
How would the kitchen-wench reply? Why thus
(If given, as scullions use, to logic-fence
And keen retorsion of dilemmata
In speeches of a hundred lines or so):
‘Grant your plea valid. Good. There's mine to hear.
'Twas Nature made you? well: and me, no less;
You she by forces past your own control
Made a cheese-stealer? Be it so: of me
By forces as resistless and her own
She made a mouse-killer. Thus, either plays
A rôle in no wise chosen of himself,
But takes what part the great Stage Manager
Cast him for, when the play was set afoot.
Remains we act ours—without private spite,
But still with spirit and fidelity,
As fits good actors: you I blame no whit
For nibbling cheese—simply I throw you down
Unblamed—nay, even morally assoiled,
To pussy there: blame thou not me for that.’
Or say perhaps the girl is slow of wit,
Something inapt at ethics—why, then thus:
‘Enough of prating, little thief! This talk
Of “fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,”
Is hugely out of place! What next indeed,
If all the casuistry of the schools
Be prayed in aid by every pilfering mouse
That's caught i' th' trap? See here, my thieving friend,
Thus I resolve the problem. We prefer
To keep our cheeses for our own behoof,
And eat them with our proper jaws; and so,
Having command of mouse-traps, we will catch
Whatever mice we can, and promptly kill
Whatever mice we catch. Entendez-vous?
Ay, and we will, though all the mice on earth
Pass indignation votes, obtest the faith
Of gods and men, and make the welkin ring
With world-resounding dissonance of squeak!’”

But hist! here comes my wizard! Ready then
My nerves—and talons—for the trial of strength!
A stout heart, feline cunning, and—who knows?