The Sorcerer Royal's servants had formerly been bound by a geas against disclosure of any detail of his household affairs, breach of which was visited by the most terrible revenge.

On he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth, till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preserved having rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literally spout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in length.

It has its charms though. Royal Oak is like a country branch line dropped down amid the main line approaches to Paddington. It's as if two very different train sets got mixed up in the same box.

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