The Present and the Past by Ivy Compton-Burnett

idea!’
    â€˜It is a very good poem for so young a child. And Guy has printed it beautifully.’
    â€˜It is your own child who has done the intellectual part.’
    â€˜As it happens on this occasion. It might not on another.’
    â€˜Then would you draw so much attention to it?’
    â€˜It was you who did that. No one else would have done so.’
    â€˜That is what I thought. It seemed to be somehow surreptitious.’
    â€˜It was quite open. That is how you came to see it.’
    â€˜â€œMy name is Mole”,’ said Cassius, turning again to the grave. ‘I might as well say “My name is Man”.’
    â€˜The mole had no name of its own,’ said Henry. ‘It couldn’t be done as it would for a person.’
    Cassius repeated the lines to himself.
    â€˜Again,’ said Toby, arrested by them.
    Cassius repeated them, and Toby listened in enjoyment.
    â€˜Again.’
    â€˜No, no. I can’t keep on saying them.’
    â€˜Again,’ said Toby, with ominous urgency.
    Flavia repeated the lines, and the task was taken up by Bennet, as she carried Toby away. When her memory failed, Toby was able to correct her.
    â€˜â€œMy name is Joy”,’ said Cassius, frowning to himself. ‘I seem to remember something of the kind, something by some poet.’
    â€˜Megan was not copying anything,’ said Guy. ‘She wrote the poem out of her head.’
    â€˜Ah, ha!’ said his father. ‘So it was out of someone else’s, and I daresay the better for that. ‘I thought it was rather professional somehow; it struck me at once. And then it touched a chord of memory. I am not much of a hand at poetry, but I was equal to that. It came on me all in a flash.’
    â€˜It may be an echo,’ said Flavia, ‘but it was probably unconscious. And it is a small matter.’
    â€˜Well, we may as well be clear about these things. It is as well to take advantage of what we read and remember. I recognized it in a moment. I was not in a second’s doubt.’
    â€˜Now has no one any sense of time,’ said Miss Ridley, approachingwith an even tread. ‘And does no one hear a bell? And has no one any desire for tea?’
    â€˜I heard the bell a long time ago,’ said Cassius.
    â€˜Then why did you not say so?’ said his wife.
    â€˜Well, why should I think everyone else was deaf?’
    â€˜I wish you were my pupil, Mr Clare,’ said Miss Ridley, causing Henry and Megan to exchange a glance. ‘We seem to be in a class by ourselves.’
    â€˜So you read poetry with them, Miss Ridley,’ said Cassius, certainly using a tone of fellow-feeling. ‘I daresay it is a good thing to do. I have read some poetry myself and remember it.’
    â€˜Are you clairvoyant, Mr Clare, that you can tell what I do by looking at me?’
    Cassius betrayed that he did not judge her by this method, by motioning her towards the grave.
    â€˜Why, there is original work on foot. Now to whom do we owe this?’
    â€˜To Megan,’ said Henry.
    â€˜Well, well, we will not say to whom we owe it,’ said Cassius. ‘And I forget the name of the poet myself. It is the verse that I remember.’
    â€˜Why, it is very nice, Megan,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘It is at once true and imaginative, and the lettering is very neat. Well, I think it is a fortunate mole to have such a funeral.’
    â€˜You know it is not,’ said Henry.
    â€˜Guy printed it,’ said Megan.
    â€˜And who imagined it?’ said her father, shaking his head and smiling. ‘Well, we won’t worry about that. There is no end to the mole’s good fortune.’
    â€˜Mr Clare, I should suspect you of sardonic intention, if I thought it was in character,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Now there is the bell again, and I saw Toby being carried in some time ago. He was having some verses said to him. It seems that poetry is