The Astonishing History of Troy Town

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

"Ah, indeed! Mr. Moggridge, I have been so longing to know you."

Sam looked a trifle vexed. The poet simpered that he was happy.

"Of course I have been reading 'Ivy Leaves.' So mournful I thought them, yet somehow so attractive. How did you write it all?"

Mr. Moggridge confessed amiably that he "didn't quite know."

"Let me see; those lines beginning—"

'O give me wings to—to—'

'O give me wings to—to—'

"I forget for the moment how it goes on."

"'To fly away,'" suggested the bard.

"Ah, exactly; 'to fly away.' So simple—just what one would wish wings for, you know. It struck me very much when I read it. When did you think of it, Mr. Moggridge?"