Mr Ear brass was virtually asleep when several lines of verse passed through his mind and left it hopelessly awake. Here was the perfect epigraph for TUB:A horrid ?monster has been [something] delay'by your/their in diff'hence in the dank brown shade Below the garden... His mind's eye sees them quoted on the bottom third of a right-hand page in a (possibly) olive-bound book he read at least five years ago. When he does find them, it will be a great nuisance if no clue is given to their authorship.

The Unstrung Harp