to write when he had time. Besides this there were the "Lines on a Dead Black Beetle that was poisoned":—
Oh Beetle how I weep to see
Thee lying on thy poor back!
It is so very sad indeed.
You were so shiny and black.
I wish you were alive again
But Eliza says wishing it is nonsense and a shame.
It was very good beetle poison, and there were hundreds of them lying dead—but Noël only wrote a piece of poetry for one of them. He said he hadn't time to do them all, and the worst of it was he didn't know which one he'd written it to—so Alice couldn't bury the beetle and put the lines on its grave, though she wanted to very much.
Well, it was quite plain that there wasn't enough poetry for a book.
"We might wait a year or two," said Noël. "I shall be sure to make some more some time. I thought of a piece about a fly this morning that knew condensed milk was sticky."
"But we want the money now," said Dicky, "and you can go on writing just the same. It will come in some time or other."
"There's poetry in newspapers," said Alice.
