He studied a tapestry on one wall of a noli me tangere wrought by a craftsman whose signature was illegible.

The motorist claimed Smidsy after the crash — ‘Sorry mate I didn't see you’.

So while Ralph generally seems to inhabit a different, more glorious and joyful universe than everyone else here his yearning and heartbreak are eminently relateable. Ralph sometimes appears to be a magically demented sprite who has assumed the form of a boy, but he’s never been more poignantly, nakedly, movingly human than he is here.

[…] they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour […]