O Beetle how I weep to see
Thee lying on thy poor back!
It is so very sad indeed.
You were so shiny and black.
I wish you were alive again
But Eliza says wishing it is nonsense and a shame.

It was very good beetle poison, and there were hundreds of them lying
dead--but Noel only wrote a piece of poetry for one of them. He said he
hadn't time to do them all, and the worst of it was he didn't know which
one he'd written it to--so Alice couldn't bury the beetle and put the
lines on its grave, though she wanted to very much.

Well, it was quite plain that there wasn't enough poetry for a book.

'We might wait a year or two,' said Noel. 'I shall be sure to make some
more some time. I thought of a piece about a fly this morning that knew
condensed milk was sticky.'

'But we want the money _now_,' said Dicky, 'and you can go on writing
just the same. It will come in some time or other.'

'There's poetry in newspapers,' said Alice. 'Down, Pincher! you'll
never be a clever dog, so it's no good trying.'

'Do they pay for it?' Dicky thought of that; he often thinks of things
that are really important, even if they are a little dull.

'I don't know. But I shouldn't think any one would let them print their