"Won't rhyme with Florrie," explained Clovis briefly.
Septimus sat upright in his chair, with unmistakable alarm on his
face.
"How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying to
get a rhyme to Florrie?" he asked sharply.
"I didn't know," said Clovis, "I only guessed. When you wanted to
turn the prosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flitting
through the verdure of a tropical forest, I knew you must be
working up a sonnet, and Florrie was the only female name that
suggested itself as rhyming with lorry."
Septimus still looked uneasy.
"I believe you know more," he said.
Clovis laughed quietly, but said nothing.
"How much do you know?" Septimus asked desperately.
"The yew tree in the garden," said Clovis.
"There! I felt certain I'd dropped it somewhere. But you must
have guessed something before. Look here, you have surprised my
secret. You won't give me away, will you? It is nothing to he
ashamed of, but it wouldn't do for the editor of the CATHEDRAL
MONTHLY to go in openly for that sort of thing, would it?"
"Well, I suppose not," admitted Clovis.
"You see," continued Septimus, "I get quite a decent lot of money
out of it.
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