But if they had known, / Then had there been no mystery; / And Life had been poorer, / And laughter unsurer, / And the shadow of death securer

But come let's wing our Steps with utmost Speed, The swiftest Haste is laggard to the Deed.

It seemed to them the ideal place for those confidential mid-morning potations and games of pool for which the Foreign Office had invented the phrase “elevenses”, after the hour of the morning when one feels one most needs a short swift drink, or a long “unwinder”, to use slang.

Insooth, good friend, your father might have kept This Calfe, bred from his Cow from all the world