"Well, they don't. I don't like it. I haven't been feeling a bit well."
The Tyro expressed commiseration and sympathy.
"You look disgustingly fit," she commented.
"I? Never felt so well in my life. A minute ago, I won't say. But now—I could burst into poetry."
"Do," she urged.
"All right, I will. Listen. It's a limerick. I made it up out of the fullness of my heart, and it's about myself but dedicated to you.
| "There once was a seaworthy child |
| Whose feelings could never be riled. |
| While the porpoises porped—" |
"There's no such word as 'porped,'" she interrupted.
"Yes, there is. There has to be. Nothing else in the world acts like a porpoise; therefore there must be a word meaning to act like a porpoise; and that word is the verb 'to porp.'"
"You're an ingenious lunatic," she allowed.