“Yes,” said Lalage. “I couldn’t remember how they went, and Cattersby had the book. She pretends she likes reading poetry, though she doesn’t really, and she makes me learn off whole chunks of it.”
“You can’t deny that it comes in useful occasionally. I don’t see how you could have composed that parody if she hadn’t made you learn——”
“She didn’t. That’s not the sort of poetry she makes me learn. If it was I might do it. She finds out rotten things about ‘Little Lamb, who made you?’ ‘We are Seven,’ and stuff of that sort. Not what I call poetry at all.”
I had the good sense while at Oxford to attend some lectures given by the professor of poetry. I also belonged for a time to an association modestly called “The Brotherhood of Rhyme.” We used to meet in my rooms and read original compositions to each other until none of us could stand it any longer. I am therefore thoroughly well qualified to discuss poetry with any one.
I should, under ordinary circumstances, have taken a pleasure in defending the reputations of Blake and Wordsworth, but I shrank from attempting to do so in a pigsty with Lalage Beresford as an opponent, I turned to the last page of the Anti-Cat and read the article entitled “Our Tactics.” It was exceedingly short, but it struck me as able. I began to have a great deal of pity for Miss Battersby.
“Calm” (or Balm. There was an uncertainty about the first letter) “and haughty in her presence. Let yourself out behind her back.”
“What about your going in for the competition?” said Lalage. “Even if she doesn’t insult you you could easily invent something. You’ve seen her and you know quite well the sort she is. You might get the prize.”
“May I read the story you’ve got?” I asked. “If it’s not very good I might perhaps try; but it is probably quite superior to anything I could possibly produce, and in that case there would be no use my attempting to compete.”
“It is good,” said Lalage, “but yours might be good too, and then I should divide the prize, or you could give a second prize; a box of Turkish Delight would do.”
This encouraged me and I read the “Insult Story.”