Let us suppose that we are doing a mountain walk to the village which is our home. At mid-day we come to the top of a cliff where we are, in space, very near it because it is just below us. We could drop a stone into it. But as we are no cragsmen we can't get down. We must go a long way round; five miles, maybe.

My lord, I brained him with a lever my neighbour lent me, and he stood by and cried, ‘Strike home, old boy!’

And it is symptomatic of the many paradoxes of Lederer's life that of all the people in the room, Brotherhood is the one whom he would most wish to serve, if ever he had the opportunity, even though — or perhaps because — his occasional efforts to ingratiate himself with his adopted hero have met with iron rebuff.

For mowdewart and marmot; for furze-pig / and parmaceti; for feline / and anserine; for Lawrence the tod.