Send In The Clones: A Fairy Story

Once Upon a Time, in a city in the English Midlands, there lived a man named Philip Blue who was very rich and who owned a factory. Some years before he had invented a new kind of widget, and he built his factory so that he could make lots of his widgets and sell them at a very good profit.

As a result he made himself a fortune, but he suffered from a fault that is common to many rich people, which is that his only aim in life became to make yet more money, even though he had long ago reached the point where he had more than enough to last him for the rest of his life. Every day he would visit the vault in the cellar of his enormous house and watch as barrow-loads of money were wheeled in to add to his millions. The only time he spent any of his money was when he wanted to buy another luxury yacht, of which he had several.

He was what is known as a capitalist, but he was one of those who spent so much time adding to his riches that he had no time in which to do anything else, such as washing. That was why his neighbours called him a filthy capitalist. This qualified him to be knighted by the Queen, so that he could call himself Sir Philip Blue.

Of course, he did not make all the widgets by himself. His factory was staffed by a hundred workers who spent all day earning the minimum wage as they turned the wheels on the hundred widget-making machines that produced thousands of widgets every hour.

Sir Philip liked nothing better than to walk through his factory watching his hundred workers turn their wheels and make his widgets. He noted which ones worked faster and which worked slower. He would hurl insults at the really slow ones and call them rude names. Given that he thought that nearly all of them were lazy shirkers, he shouted lots of rude names as he walked through his factory.

There was only one worker who really impressed Sir Philip. This was Number 42, who turned his wheel so fast that he produced twice as many widgets as anybody else. Number 42 was never shouted at or called a rude name. Sir Philip would have loved it if all his workers had been as efficient as Number 42.

One day, as Sir Philip was crossing the road outside his factory, he spotted one of his factory lorries coming down the road. To his horror, he saw that there was nobody driving it. Somebody must have left the handbrake off and let it roll out of the factory gate and onto the public road. The lorry was approaching a pedestrian crossing just as a young woman pushing a pram was using it.

One thought flashed through Sir Philip’s mind. If the lorry was to run down and kill a young mother and her baby, the reputation of his company could he tarnished for ever. He simply could not let that happen. That was why he seized hold of the handle on the driver’s door, pulled it open and leaped aboard, grabbing the handbrake just in time to prevent the lorry, emblazoned with his company’s name and logo, crushing the young woman and the pram beneath its wheels.

The young woman was extremely grateful to Sir Philip for saving her life and that of her baby. Completely misinterpreting his motives, she hugged him tight and asked what she could possibly do to repay him for his brave and thoughtless action.

“You see”, she said, “I’m a fairy and I can grant any wish you might have – anything at all.”

“Anything?” asked Sir Philip.

“Anything”, said the fairy, whose name was Amelia.

“Well,” said Sir Philip, “My deepest wish is that all my hundred workers could be just like Number 42. Could you manage that?”

“No problem”, said Amelia. “Just get me a sample of Number 42’s DNA and I’ll produce 99 clones of him who will work just as hard as he does.”

“That’s brilliant”, said Sir Philip. “But how do I get a sample of his DNA?”

“All you have to do”, said Amelia, “is get a smear of saliva from something he has been drinking out of, such as a cup or a mug. Just collect one the next time he has a tea break.”

“Tea break?” asked Sir Philip. “What’s a tea break?”

Nevertheless, Sir Philip was able to get a DNA sample from Number 42 and the fairy duly produced 99 clones of him. Sir Philip promptly sacked all the other workers and installed the clones in their places.

Production went through the roof. Widgets poured out of the factory, all to the same extremely high standard that Number 42 had always produced. Likewise, more money poured into Sir Philip’s basement and he ordered another two luxury yachts.

But then, a month or so later, Sir Philip noticed that production was starting to slow down. On his next factory visit he went straight to the machine worked by Number 42 and was shocked to see that his star worker was turning his wheel far more slowly than usual, and he looked distinctly unwell.

“I’m very sorry, Sir Philip”, he said. “But I’m going to have to stop working for you. You see, all my family suffer from a very rare genetic disease that means that we have perfectly healthy lives to the age of 50 then drop dead shortly afterwards. It was my 50^th birthday last week and my time is nearly up”.

And so it was. Unfortunately for Sir Philip, that was also the case with every other worker in his factory, each of whom was an exact clone of Number 42 and therefore had the same genetic malfunction. Two weeks later, every worker in his factory died and the wheels stopped turning.

Things only got worse. With such a terrible reputation for worker fatalities, nobody would risk taking a job at Sir Philip’s factory. Not only that, but all the original workers, Numbers 1 to 41 and 43 to 100, hired a very clever lawyer who urged them to sue Sir Philip for unfair dismissal and claim massive compensation for all the insults they had suffered at his hands during the time they had worked for him.

Before long, the barrows were wheeling money out of Sir Philip’s cellar, all the yachts were sold, as well as the house, and Sir Philip lost his knighthood.

On the other hand, the 99 former workers, as well as fairy Amelia and her baby, all lived happily ever after.

© John Welford

Valentine's Day at the Macbeths

Breakfast at Glamis Castle, home of Lord and Lady (soon to be King and Queen) Macbeth was never a particularly jolly affair. Apart from the appalling draughts that blew down the length of the dining room through all the ill-fitting windows, there was the recurring problem of the awkward questions that flew across the breakfast table between the castle’s chief occupants.

These quite often referred to missing guests. It was a common occurrence for a distinguished visitor to enjoy a hearty supper the evening before but not put in an appearance at breakfast. His lordship would ask her ladyship what had happened to Lord McX or Duke McY and be fobbed off with the news that he was a particularly heavy sleeper. Macbeth always doubted this, knowing just how uncomfortable all the beds were at Glamis Castle. His suspicion was that the only way to lose consciousness for any length of time in a castle bed was if one’s throat was attended to courtesy of a sharp knife, and his wife had never said anything to allay that suspicion.

However, on the morning of 14^th February the questions were about a very different matter. Four envelopes were propped against his lordship’s box of cornflakes but there was none within reach of Lady Macbeth at the other end of the table.

“Where’s my Valentine’s card, then?” she snapped.

“Oh – is it Valentine’s Day today, my sweet?” Macbeth replied.

“You know full well it is”, said her ladyship. “And you’ve forgotten to buy me a card!”

“Oh dear”, said Macbeth. “Sorry.”

“What’s the matter with you?” asked his wife. “Don’t you love me any more?”

This was a question to which a straight yes or no answer was not easy to give. It was the “any more” that was the problem. Had Macbeth ever loved his wife in the first place? This was the question he was forced to ask himself, and he racked his brain trying to remember if this had ever been the case.

The fact was that theirs would have been a shotgun wedding had shotguns been around at the time. Determined to get herself an aristocratic husband she had put the word around that Macbeth was the father of her unborn child and gathered an impressive force of violent thugs to frog-march Macbeth down the aisle of the local kirk to put a ring on her finger. 

For his part, Macbeth could not recall ever having been to bed with his bride, and this situation did not change after they were married. The supposed pregnancy had all been a trick, thanks to some well-placed cushions that disappeared immediately after the wedding.

“So how come you’ve got four Valentine’s cards today?” she asked. “I know who one of them’s from, but what about the other three? How many floozies have you been seeing behind my back?”

Macbeth knew that any answer he gave would only lead to further trouble, so he stayed silent.

“Open them”, she said. “I want to know who sent them”.

“Valentine’s cards are always anonymous”, Macbeth said. “You wouldn’t be able to tell.”

“Give them here”, she said. “I can always tell”.

So Macbeth flung the offending cards down the length of the table. Lady Macbeth started to open the first of them, using a knife that looked as though it might have used for other purposes in the past, judging by the suspicious red stains on it.

“I know the perfume used by every woman within 20 miles of this castle”, she said. “If you’ve been playing around with any of them I’ll know after a single sniff”.

So saying, she gave put her nose to the open envelope and nearly collapsed on the floor, grabbing her throat as she did so.

“My God!” she gasped. “That’s appalling! What female could possibly smell like that?”

“Like what?” Macbeth asked.

“Like a ton of dog poo mixed with the pong from that corpse I forgot to bury until it had been dead for a fortnight”.

“What corpse was that, my precious?” 

“Never you mind. At all events, this pong smells worse.”

“And what does the card say?” he asked.

Lady Macbeth gingerly extracted the card and read the verse on the front.

“Roses are red, Violets are blue, You will be mine, I’ve put a spell on you”.

“I wonder who could possibly have sent that?” Macbeth wondered, having a pretty good idea what the answer was.

“You can read the other two”, said Lady Macbeth, throwing them back in his direction. “I don’t want them anywhere near me”.

“OK”, said her husband, holding his nose as he extracted the cards from their envelopes.

“This one says: “Some roses are yellow, Others are white, You’re a lucky fellow, Come to dinner tonight.”

“And the third one?”

Macbeth picked up the final mystery card with trepidation, knowing full well where it had come from. Why those hags from Blasted Heath Cottage thought of him on Valentine’s Day was anyone’s guess, but it was hard to imagine that their intentions towards him could have been even remotely friendly ones.

The third card read:

“Roses are red, Violets are blue, You never could guess, What we’ve put in the stew.” On this point they were entirely wrong. He could.

Lady Macbeth was staring at him down the length of the table. Although Macbeth did not have the slightest intention of accepting the invitation to dinner, his wife did not appear to be so sure. 

“I think you’d better look at my card”, she said. She was holding her knife in a somewhat threatening manner, testing its sharpness with her thumb.

Macbeth promptly did so. Its message was clear enough:

“Roses aren’t blue, Violets aren’t red, Start messing around, You'd be better off dead”.

© John Welford

Partner Piece

The idea behind this is that it be read out by two people - the writer and an unsuspecting "victim" - at a session of a writer's group. Copies will be printed out for the two participants and the all-important page break is as indicated below.

************************************************************

A: Have you seen what we’ve been asked to do for this week?

B: Something called “Partner Work” I believe.

A: Do you know what that is?

B: Haven’t a clue. What do you reckon it is?

A: I think the idea is that you write a piece that works a bit like a play – a conversation between two people so you read half the lines and somebody else reads the rest.

B: Like a dialogue in a play, you mean?

A: Exactly like a dialogue in a play. As I said just now, if you’d been listening.

B: Sorry. So have you written yours yet?

A: I’m working on it.

B: What’s it going to be about, then?

A: That’s what I’m working on. I want it to be interesting and informative. I hold to the principle that one should always write from experience – you should write what you know.

B: That should give you plenty of free time, then.

A: Thanks.

B: Don’t mention it. But seriously, I agree with you  – you can’t just waffle on for page after page, like you’re doing now, if I’m not mistaken.

A: As I said before – Thanks. But I have got an idea. What I really need is a thoroughgoing mug – I mean a fine upstanding citizen – who can be my partner and read out all the lines marked “B” if I read the lines marked “A”.

B: Got anyone in mind?

A: Funny you should mention that. I reckon you might be just the right candidate.

B: Why do you say that?

A: Good clear speaking voice, somebody who might scan their eyes down the first page of my script and think “This is a doddle, no problems here” and never give a thought to turning over to Page Two.

B: What happens on Page Two, then?

A: Do you really want to know?

B: I think I do.

A: Have you ever been on Mastermind?

B: You’re changing the subject now.

****************** PAGE BREAK *************************

A: So I am. Here we go then.

B: Do we?

A: Your name?

B:

A: Occupation?

B: Scribbler.

A: Specialised subject?

B: Words, names and phrases that I can pronounce but not many other people can.

A: OK – here we go then. Two minutes on – what you just said. What is the name of the first railway station you come to after crossing the Menai Straits on to Anglesey?

B: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

A: Correct – or maybe not. What happens near Edinburgh on a Sunday morning after you and your mates have been recovering in the cells after downing far too much amber nectar the night before?

B: The Leith Police dismisseth us.

A: A valiant effort. And the longest word to be found in the works of William Shakespeare?

B: Honorificabilitudinitatibus.

A: Nearly. And how would you describe the rapid emergence of eight alternately coloured commercial vehicles on to the A447 at Cadeby?

B: Red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry.

A: As you say. The longest place name in the world?

B: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

A: Maybe. Oh dear, your time is up, which means that I can’t ask you for the complete chemical name of the protein titin, which as you probably know runs to nearly 200,000 characters and takes more than an hour to pronounce.

B: Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

A: And will you be my partner the next time we do something like this?

B: Pass.

© John Welford

Identifying a Flying Object

I had always been highly sceptical about stories concerning visits from other worlds. There are plenty of people who swear blind that they have seen objects in the sky that simply had to contain beings from far away whose aim was probably to colonise our planet and destroy anyone who stood in their way.

There were even tales of supposed encounters with strange creatures that had actually landed and made contact with us. However, nobody could ever produce any solid proof of this. The tellers of these tales were almost always either off their heads or clever hoaxers who dressed up dead animals to look like corpses of aliens.

As for those inverted saucers in the sky, they could always be explained away as cloud shapes or reflections seen in aircraft windows. As I said, being sceptical was clearly the sensible way to go.

That was why I simply did not believe the reports that came our way about what some astronomers had seen in their powerful telescopes. They said that a strange object was heading our way that had to be of alien manufacture. It just could not be explained in any other way. 

It was of no great size, they said, so there was no way it could contain an invasion force of little green people. Indeed, it did not look like a vessel of any kind. It had a large white dish and lots of bits sticking out of it at odd angles. It could be nothing other than a set of scientific instruments and the means of relaying its information back to wherever it had come from.

Our leaders had to make a hurried decision, because this thing was travelling incredibly fast and, if we did nothing, it would pass us by very quickly and its secrets be lost to us forever. The chance had come to confirm, at long last, that we were not the only intelligent life forms in the Universe and that someone else was out there and was doing exactly what we had been doing for many generations, namely looking for other life-bearing planets.

As it happened, we had a spacecraft with just the right equipment for the job that could be launched immediately. This was done, and the strange object was caught in a net and dragged back to the surface, where it could be examined in detail.

One thing that soon became apparent was that this craft was extremely old. Examinations were made of the materials of which it was composed, some of which were radioactive, and these showed that the craft must have been travelling for nearly as long as our species had been developing. Our planet had nothing on it more intelligent than creatures dwelling in swamps and saying “Ugg” to each other when this thing had started on its way. It had clearly long stopped sending information back to base and therefore posed absolutely no threat to us.

But where had it come from, and what sort of being had sent it?

Then a remarkable discovery was made. The scientists found a disc, made of what was probably gold, that appeared to be completely undamaged despite the vast amount of time that it had passed on his journey from one world to another. This was unlike any of the other instruments on board and so did not appear to be for the purpose of gathering information. There could only be one explanation – this was a means of giving information, not receiving it.

For one thing, the disk was sheathed in a cover that was inscribed with information that was not difficult to interpret. It told us which solar system the host planet orbited, and also gave full instructions about what to do with the disc, which was a repository of sounds, images, and a host of other information.

The disc proved to be a time capsule of a complete alien civilization, or maybe that should be a group of civilizations, because what came across was a picture of a very diverse world, in many respects. The most intelligent beings, who must have been the ones that made the disc and sent the craft on its way, clearly came in many shapes and sizes, as did the other creatures that inhabited their planet.

There were images of landscapes that ranged from huge cities to barren deserts, icy wastes and mountain ranges, as well as land that was used to grow food and seas that were swarming with fish.

The sounds included voices that appeared to speak in many different languages, and sounds that said nothing but were presumably made simply to give pleasure – some of these were indeed very beautiful, others less so.

So there we were, the recipients of a gift from a world that was so far away that it could only be detected with the most powerful telescopes we could devise. These alien people presumably had another purpose when they launched this craft – maybe they only wanted to explore their own solar system, but reckoned that it might well escape and end up being seen by lifeforms of which they could know nothing but assume must exist.

The ironic thing is that our experts recently detected a huge supernova explosion in a region of space not far from the solar system in question. They calculated that the blast would have produced a massive amount of radiation that would have destroyed all forms of life on any planet even remotely close.

What this means is that, even if the civilizations that we had seen on the disc had survived in some shape or form to this day, they could not have done so any longer. In other words, we now have in our hands the only record that life, intelligent or otherwise, ever existed on Planet Earth.

© John Welford

Put That Light Out

(This story is loosely based on a real incident)

It might be thought that the idea of night-time blackouts as a form of civilian protection during wartime originated in World War Two with the legal requirement to hide all lights that might be spotted by would-be aerial bombers. Those who remember the TV comedy series “Dad’s Army” will recall the cry of “Put That Light Out” that was regularly issued by William Hodges, the long-suffering ARP warden.

However, something similar occurred during World War One, although the main focus was not to protect against Zeppelin raids in London and other major cities but, in smaller coastal communities, to meet a threat that came from a different direction.

The German Navy had a fleet of submarines that were known to patrol the seas around the British Isles. The danger they posed was brought forcibly to public attention when a submarine sank RMS Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland in May 1915 with the loss of nearly 1200 lives. Britain had few defences against such attacks, but the night-time blackout along the Channel coast was a measure that was strictly enforced.

The idea was that a submarine proceeding along the coast would be able to see the silhouette of a ship if the latter was marked out against a brightly lit background. If the lights were not there, neither would the outline of a potential torpedo victim be visible.

For example, in the town of Poole, which spread from the north side of Poole Harbour all the way to the clifftops next door to Bournemouth, police constables were soon on their guard against cyclists and the occasional motorist whose lamps were considered to be too bright for safety, and the local magistrates had a profitable time collecting fines from offenders, whether they were road-users or citizens whose properties were showing too much light to the outside world.

One such case involved the landlord of The Lord Nelson, a pub on Poole Quay. The idea that a German U-boat could make its way into the shallow waters of Poole Harbour at night and then fire a torpedo at a quayside ship, only visible thanks to the merrymaking at a local hostlery, might sound fanciful, but that is the way the official mind works.

Robin Giles, the landlord in question, could not say that he had had no warning. His wife, Molly, had provided plenty of that in the days before his appearance in court.

“This place is a tip”, said Molly. “Don’t you ever do any cleaning or tidying in here?”

She was remarking on the state of the bar shortly before opening time one Saturday evening in June.

“It looks all right to me”, said Robin, whose standards were considerably lower in this respect than those of his wife.

“There’s dirt all over the floors, half the tables are covered in dog-ends, and there’s hardly a clean glass behind the bar,” Molly said. “Three ships tied up today, full of thirsty sailors who’ll be pouring through this door the second I open it. You’d better shift your backside pronto and get to work for once”.

Molly had never minced her words, which is one reason why she was the driving force behind this successful dockside pub, with its rough-and-ready clientele, in the early 20^th century.

“And another thing”, she told her husband as he reluctantly got to work on the glasses, “I told you weeks ago to get some proper blackout shutters fitted. Those old beer-crates shoved against the windows will do not good at all.”

“Oh give over”, said Robin. “Nobody will notice. We’ll be fine.”

But Molly ‘s advice proved to have been worth taking. On Monday morning, first thing, a knock on the door brought a summons to attend the Magistrates’ Court on a charge of not maintaining a suitable blackout during the hours of darkness. 

“I told you so”, said Molly, her statement being one with which Robin could hardly disagree.

At the Magistrates’ Court, evidence was given by Constable Percy White, who, he said, had been having a quiet drink in The Lord Nelson – while off duty, as he assured the Magistrate – when he had noticed two things.

“Which were, Constable White?”

“Firstly, Your Worship, that my glass was extremely dirty, and secondly that the blackouts in the windows were just a few bits of broken beer crate.”

“And when did you notice this, Constable White?”

“I don’t follow you, Your Worship.”

“He means,” Robin interjected, “was that after the seventh or the eighth pint of my excellent best bitter?”

“Mr Giles, you should not interrupt,”, said the Magistrate, “but you are quite right, that was roughly the question I was going to ask next.”

“That doesn’t matter”, said the constable, clearly getting a bit rattled, “the fact remains that the blackout was not sufficient to block light from reaching the outside world through the windows.”

“And how do you respond to that, Mr Giles?” asked the Magistrate.

“I say it was perfectly OK”, Robin replied. “And if you come down to my pub tonight I’ll prove it to you, and throw a free pint or two of best into the bargain.”

“That would be an unusual move to take”, said the Magistrate, “but if you put it like that, how could I refuse?”

So that is what they did. As darkness fell on Poole Quay, the Magistrate, his court clerk and Constable White stood opposite The Lord Nelson while Robin and Molly turned on all the lights and put their blackouts, such as they were, into place. A minute later Robin came outside.

“How was that?” he asked. “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing at all”, said the Magistrate. “Not so much as a gleam of light until you opened the door”.

“You must have cheated”, said Constable White, “You’ve fitted some proper blackout shutters since this morning, haven’t you?”

“Not at all”, said Robin. “Come and see”.

So he led the party back into the pub where Molly explained the situation.

“The fact is, Your Worship,” she said, “That my bone idle husband does not only not wash the glasses properly or sweep the floors, but he hasn’t cleaned the windows for at least seven years. They are so caked with muck and detritus that not a chink of light could possibly get through, as you have just seen for yourself. For once in his life, he’s actually got something right”.

“Case dismissed”, said the Magistrate. “Now where’s that pint? In a clean glass, if you don’t mind.”

© John Welford

Resolution

The Council Chairman rapped his gavel and stood to read the latest document that needed Council approval. He cleared his throat and began:

“We, being the lawfully constituted and duly elected members of Ossington Borough Council, do hereby, notwithstanding any previous resolutions of said nature, not including sections 7, 8, 10 (subsections 14b, 27c and 34 f, g and k) of the resolution proposed by the Ways and Means Committee and duly approved by the full council on 27^th May 2017, subsequently amended – according to due process under Standing Order 17B – on 30^th September 2017, resolve to take note of all previous reports on such matters as may want approval before any subcommittee lawfully constituted for such purposes, whether permanent or interim, and that anything said in committee, be that ultra vires or post positum nonsequitorum, be thereby subsequently approved.”

The Chairman paused, then asked, “Are we all agreed?”

He was met by a sea of blank faces.

“I said, are we all agreed? That sounds clear enough to me. You wish to address the Council, Councillor Locke?”

Councillor Locke stood and stated that he did indeed wish to do so.

“With respect, Mr Chairman,” he said, “I don’t think that’s clear at all. I surely cannot be alone in not having understood a single word of that resolution.”

There were nods and murmurs around the Council Chamber that made it perfectly clear that his opinion was shared by all those present.

Councillor Berkeley stood up.

“With just as much respect as offered by Councillor Locke, Mr Chairman” he said, “that resolution is a load of guff and twaddle. I propose that we amend it so that Councillors have at least a fighting chance of working out what it means.”

“And just how do you propose to do that, Councillor Berkeley?” asked the Chairman.

“For a start,”, said Councillor Berkeley, “we know who we are, so we don’t need all that ‘lawfully constituted’ stuff at the beginning.”

“And the same goes for ‘hereby, notwithstanding’,” said Councillor Hume, joining the fray. 

“And how about all those sections, subjections and standing orders?” offered Councillor Bentham, to general approval from his fellow Councillors.

“All right, all right”, said the Chairman. “We’ll do what you say”. He motioned to the Council Clerk that her large red pencil should get to work and start crossing out all the offending words and phrases that the Councillors had objected to. When this was done, he addressed the Councillors once more.

“Is there anything else you want changed?” he asked, hoping that that the answer would be No. But it wasn’t.

“Let’s cut that bit about permanent and interim subcommittees”, said Councillor Mill.

“And let’s stick to good, plain old-fashioned English”, said Councillor Russell. “We don’t need all that Latin stuff. This is Ossington, not Ancient Rome.”

“OK”, said the Chairman. “The Council Clerk has so far deleted everything from ‘being’ to ‘Council’, from ‘hereby’ to ‘nature’, from ‘including’ to ‘as may’ and from ‘approval’ to ‘and that’. I shall now ask her to cut the last bit out as well. That should leave us with a resolution that everybody will be happy with.”

There was general agreement in the Council Chamber.

“I shall therefore ask the Clerk to read out our amended resolution”, said the Chairman.

The Clerk duly rose and read what was left between all her crossings-out.

 

"We … do … not … want … anything”.

© John Welford

100 words for Christmas

The challenge was to write exactly 100 words on a Christmas theme. This was my response:

Over the Christmas period he sent her a weird assortment of presents, including people of varied social statuses, poultry, other types of bird, pear trees and gold rings. At first the gifts were welcome, but the novelty soon wore off. She felt she had no choice but to send the whole lot back. The postage cost her a fortune, especially as the lords kept leaping out of the boxes she put them in, as did the dancing ladies, and the pipers and drummers were so noisy. That was why she decided to defray her expenses by keeping the gold rings. 

© John Welford