'Mother, may I go and maffick,
Tear around and hinder traffic?'


Of course you'll say there would be no traffic worth
bothering about on the bare and sun-scorched veldt, but
there's no other word that rhymes with maffick."

"Seraphic?"

Reginald considered. "It might do, but I've got a lot about
angels later on. You must have angels in a Peace poem; I
know dreadfully little about their habits."

"They can do unexpected things, like the hartebeest."

"Of course. Then I turn on London, the City of Dreadful
Nocturnes, resonant with hymns of joy and thanksgiving -


'And the sleeper, eye unlidding,
Heard a voice for ever bidding
Much farewell to Dolly Gray;
Turning weary on his truckle-
Bed he heard the honey-suckle
Lauded in apiarian lay.'


Longfellow at his best wrote nothing like that."