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wanted to be there yourself to see Arthur talk them birds into posing."

Verily grinned. "Must have been a sight to see."

"For the first couple of minutes, maybe." Alvin yawned.

"Oh, that's right, your life is so boring," said Verily.

"No, I was just thinking that you would have gotten a lot bigger kick out of the way we broke into the taxidermist's shop and set free a bird that wasn't quite dead."

Verily paced around the room, orating. "That's it! Right there! This is intolerable! This is what makes me so angry! Leaving me out of everything fun! This is why you are the most irritating friend a man could have!"

"But Verily, I didn't know when I left the house that anything like that was going to happen."

"That's exactly my point," said Verily. "You don't know what's going to happen, and given what's happened to you your whole life, it is unreasonable - indeed it is unconscionable - for you to presume that any task you set out on will proceed without dangerous and fascinating consequences!"

"So what's your solution?"

Verily knelt before him and rested his hands on Alvin's knees. Nose to nose he said, "Always take me with you, dammit!"

"Even when I have to whip it out and pee into a bush?"

"If I allow any exceptions, then sure as you're born, there'll be a talking badger in the bush who'll clamp his jaws on your pisser and won't let go till you give him the secret of the universe."

"Well, hell, Verily, if that ever happens I'll just have to pee sitting down for the rest of my life, cause I don't know the secret of the universe."

"And that's why you've got to keep me with you."

"Why, do you know the secret?"

"No, but I can strangle the badger till he lets you go."

"Badgers got powerful claws, Verily. Your legs'd be in shreds in ten seconds, you are such a greenhorn."

"There is no badger, Alvin! This was a hypothetical situation, deliberately exaggerated for rhetorical effect."

"You're spitting right in my face, Very."

"I am with you through it all, Alvin. That's what I'm saying."

"I know, Verily Cooper. I'm counting on you."

Chapter 4 - Stirred-Up

In the cheap boardinghouse where Calvin and Honor‚ were staying, the kitchen was in the back garden. This was fine with them. Arriving home from a night of carousing, they wanted something to eat but didn't want to call the landlady's attention to their late arrival. This was Camelot, after all, in which men were expected to drink, but only with absolute decorum, and never in a way that would discommode polite ladies.

Most of the food was in the locked pantry inside the house, on the ground floor where the slaves lived. No need to wake them up. The kitchen shed had a little food in it. There was a pot of cheap cooking molasses, some rancid butter, and leftover chickpeas stuck to the pot they had been cooked in. Honor‚ de Balzac looked at the mess with distaste. But Calvin just grinned at him.

"You're too finicky, Monsieur Haute Soci‚t‚," said Calvin. "This is all we need for a good batch of stirred-up."

"A word that I thank God I am not familiar with."

"It's called stirred-up because you stir it up." In moments Calvin had the stove hot and rancid butter melting in the frying pan. He ladled in some molasses and scraped chickpeas out of the pot, adding them to the mess. Then he stiffed.

"See?" he said. "I'm stirring."

"You are stirring side-to-side," said Honor‚. "And the mixture is going steadily down in quality. The one thing you are not doing is stirring up."

"Ain't English funny?" said Calvin.

"The longer I know you, the less sure I am that what you speak is English."

"Well, hell, that's the glory of English. You can speak it ten thousand different ways, and it's still OK."

"That barbarous expression! '0.K.' What does this mean?"

"Oll Korrect," said Calvin. "Making fun of people who care too much about how words get writ down."

"Now, writing down, that makes sense. The ink flows down. The pen points down. Your hideous mixture should be called 'stirred-down.'"

The butter-and-molasses mess was bubbling now. "Nice and hot," said Calvin. "Want some?"

"Only to ward off imminent death."

"This cures not just hunger but the French disease and cholera too, not to mention making mad dogs whimper and run away."

"In France we call it the English disease."

"That bunch of Puritans? How could they catch a disease of coition?"

"They may be pure in doctrine, but they hump like