"Yes; quite a few. Here, for instance, he calls it a mile from the Four Corners to Lyell street. I went with the surveyors when they measured it last summer, and it was just seven eighths of a mile and three rods over."
"But you couldn't very well say 'seven eighths of a mile and three rods over' in poetry," said I.
"Perhaps not," said Ned; "and yet it wont do to have that line stand as it is. It'll be severely criticised by everybody who knows the exact distance."
I felt that Ned was wrong, but I could not tell how or why. In later years I have learned that older people than he confidently criticise what they don't understand, and put their own mechanical patches upon the artistic work of others.
"Perhaps we'd better see what Fay thinks about it," said I. "He probably knows more about poetry than we do."
"He's in the library, getting Father to help him on a hard sum," said Ned. "He'll be here in a minute."
When Phaeton returned, we pointed out the difficulty to him.
"That's all right," said he. "That's poetic license."
"What is poetic license?" said I.
"Poetic license," said Phaeton, "is a way that poets have of making things fit when they don't quite fit."