"My dear," said Lady Arabel, instantly motherly. "How too dretful. I
wish I knew of something suitable. But--war-time you know,--I'm afraid I
shan't be justified in keeping on the orchestra, certainly not in adding
to it. Besides, of course, although women are simply too splendid
nowadays, don't you think the big drum--just a wee bit unwomanly, my
dear. However----"

"Are you clever?" asked Richard.

"Yes, she is," said the witch proudly. "She writes Minor Poetry. I saw a
bit by her in a magazine that had no pictures,--the bit of poetry was
between an article on Tariff Reform and a statement of the Coal
Situation, and it began 'Oh my beloved....' I thought it was a very
beautiful bit of Minor Poetry, but somehow I couldn't make it fit in
with the two articles. That worried me a little."

"If you'd try your best not to be clever I'd give you a job," said
Richard, who with a rather tiresome persistence was now levitating the
chicken, so that, invisibly suspended at a height of eighteen inches
above the middle of the table, it dripped gravy into a bowl of
daffodils. "In fact I will give you a job. I have a farm called Higgins
Farm, just about half-way between sea-level and sky-level. You can be a
Hand, if you like, at sixpence an hour. You can get there from Mitten
Island every day quite easily, and I'll tell you how. It's just the
other side of the Parish of Faery, on your right as you reach the
mainland from Mitten Island. You follow the Green Ride through the
Enchanted Forest, until you come to the Castle where the Youngest
Prince--who rescued one of the Fetherstonhaugh girls from a giant and
married her--used to live. The Castle's to let now; she is an ambulance
driver in Salonika, and he a gunner--just got his battery, I believe.