"Is that what they used to call swearing?" asked Willow.
"No. Only Jogriphy. And History was:—
"Wi-yum the Conqueror. Tessisstysiss.
Wi-yum Ruefiss. Ten eighty-seven."
"What did it mean?"
"To us children? Very much what it means to you—gibberish. The hours, those interminable hours of childhood in school! How they dragged! Did I say I lived a life in my dream? In school I lived eternities. Naturally we sought such amusement as was possible. One thing was to give your next-door neighbour a pinch or a punch and say, 'Pass it on.' And we played furtive games with marbles. It is rather amusing to recall that I learnt to count, to add and subtract and so forth, by playing marbles in despite of discipline."
"But was that the best your Miss Merrick and your saint with the cough could do?" asked Radiant.
"Oh! they couldn't help themselves. They were in a machine, and there were periodic Inspectors and examinations to see that they kept in it."
"But," said Sunray, "that Incantation about 'Wi-yum the Conqueror' and the rest of it. It meant something? At the back of it, lost to sight perhaps, there was some rational or semi-rational idea?"
"Perhaps," reflected Sarnac. "But I never detected it."
"They called it history," said Firefly helpfully.