s. He said that these creatures didn't know they were vermin, they
just thought they were honest average animals doing their bit, and then
suddenly killed by a malignant chaos. My notes are very hurried. I am
afraid I am repeating myself."

Jay remembered the mouse they once caught, and kept in a bottle for a
day, and the palace they made for it out of stones and mud and moss, and
the sun-bath of patted mud they made by the door of the palace. But the
mouse, when it was installed, flashed straight out of the front door, and
jumped the sun-bath, and knocked down a daisy, and was never seen again.
But Jay and Kew used to believe that on moonlit nights it came back to
the palace, and brought its wife and children, and was grateful to the
palace builders.

"A few days before he was killed," said Mr. Morgan, "he told me that he
had lied so successfully all his life that quite a lot of people thought
him a most admirable young man. He said Anonyma once brought him into a
book, and when he read that book he saw how lying paid, as long as one
didn't lie to absolutely everybody. He said if he died Anonyma would
write something very nice upon his memorial brass about a pure heart or
everlasting life, and he thought you would smile a little at that. He
said that he remembered going home with you in a 'bus and seeing on the
window of the 'bus a text that promised everlasting life on certain
conditions. He said the remembrance of that text tired him still. He said
he had had too much of himself, he had known himself too well, and when
death came, he wanted it to be an honest little death with no frills, and
after that an everlasting sleep with no dreams. I am putting it all in
the wrong order. I shall make you despise me. You talk so well yourself."

Jay was remembering the "Coos" they used to have in the big armchair in
the nursery. When they found that they suddenly loved each other
unbearably, they had a Coo, they tied themselves up in a little tangle
together, and sang Coo in soft voices. And then they felt relieved. Jay
remembered the last Coo. It happened when Kew's voice was breaking ten
years ago, and he found that he could no longer coo except in a funny
falsetto. So, rather than become farcical, the Coos ceased.

"I don't know quite why Kew wanted me to tell you all this," said Mr.
Morgan, "except that he said you knew so much about him that you might as
well get as near as possible to knowing everything. He never though