“What got into Clem?” said Penny, as they drove away in Arthur’s car. It was a fine car, but it was rather a squash in the back seat with Penny, Darcourt, and Powell, however politely they might try to restrain their bottoms.

“Just thwarted professorship,” said Darcourt.

“Probably mid-life crisis,” said Powell.

“What’s that?” asked Arthur, who was driving.

“It’s one of the new, fashionable ailments, like pre-menstrual bloat,” said Powell. “Excuses anything.”

“Really?” said Arthur. “Do you suppose I might have one of those? I’ve not been feeling quite the thing, lately.”

“You’re too young for it, my darling,” said Maria. “Anyway, I wouldn’t let you. It can make a man into a big baby. I thought Clem was being an awful baby.”

“I’ve known he was a baby for years,” said Darcourt. “A large, learned, very handsome baby, but still a baby. For me, the surprise of the evening was Schnak. She’s coming out of her shell with a hell of a yell, isn’t she? She’s given us our orders.”

“It’s Old Sooty,” said Penny. “I have my dark suspicions about Old Sooty. Do you know that kid has moved in with her? Now what does that mean?”

“You obviously want to tell us,” said Maria.

“Do I have to tell you? She and Schnak are poofynooks. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

“It seems to be doing Schnak a power of good,” said Arthur. “Clean, putting on a little flesh, finding her tongue, and she doesn’t look at us any more as if she was just about to order up the tumbrils. If that’s what lesbianism does, three cheers for lesbianism, I say.”

“Yes, but haven’t we some responsibility? I mean, are we delivering this kid gagged and bound into the hands of that old bull-dyke? Didn’t you hear ‘Nilla’ and ‘dear Hulda’ all evening until you nearly threw up?”

“What about it?” said Maria. “She’s probably the first person who has ever been nice to Schnak—really nice, I mean. Very likely the first person to talk to Schnak about music seriously and not just as an instructor. If it means a few rolls in the hay, the occasional bout of kindly kissing and clipping, what about it? Schnak’s nineteen, for God’s sake, and an exceedingly bright nineteen. The word genius has been whispered.”

“What do you think, Simon?” said Penny. “You’re the professional moralist.”

“I think what Maria thinks. And as a professional moralist I think you have to take love where you find it.”

“Even if it means being mauled and clapper-clawed by Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot? Thank you, Father Darcourt, for these advanced opinions.”

“I’m in the dark about this business,” said Arthur. “What do they do?”

“Oh, Arthur, that’s what every man asks about lesbians,” said Maria. “I suppose they do whatever comes into their heads. I’m sure I could think of lots of things.”

“Could you really?” said Arthur. “You must show me. I’ll be Schnak and you be Gunny, and we’ll find out what happens in the gunny-sack. A new window on the wonders of the world.”

“I think you’re being frivolous and irresponsible,” said Penny. “I am more and more convinced that this Snark of ours is going to turn out to be a Boojum.”

“What is all this Snark and Boojum stuff?” said Arthur. “You’ve talked about it ever since you came in with us on this operatic venture. Some obscure literary reference, I suppose, designed to keep the uneducated in their proper place. Instruct me, Penny; I am just a humble, teachable money-man. Let me into your Druid Circle.”

“Sorry, sorry Arthur; I suppose it is a private lingo but it says so much in a few words. You see, there’s a very great poem by Lewis Carroll about the Hunting of the Snark; a lot of crazy creatures set off, they know not whither, in search of they know not what. The hunt is led by a Bellman—that’s you, Arthur—full of zeal and umph, and his crew includes a Boots and a Banker, and a Billiard Marker and a Beaver who makes lace—probably you, Simon, because ‘he often saved them from wreck / Though none of the sailors knew how’. And there’s a very peculiar creature who seems to be a Baker but turns out to be a Butcher, and he is omnicompetent—

–so that’s obviously you, Geraint, you Cymric mystifier, because you have us all buffaloed about this opera business. It’s just about a crazy voyage that somehow, in an unfathomable way, makes a kind of eerie sense. I mean, so many of us are professors—well, Clem and Simon and me, which is quite a few—and listen to this from the Bellman’s definition of a Snark—

Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all evening? Yammering about Malory and the scholarly approach to something that is utterly unscholarly in the marrow of its bones, because it’s Art. And Art is rum stuff—the very rummest. It may look like a nice, simple Snark, but it can suddenly prove to be a Boojum, and then, look out!

Do you get what I mean, Arthur? Do you see how it fits in and haunts my mind?”

“I might see it if I had your mind, but I haven’t,” said Arthur. “Literary reference leaves me gaping.”

“I bet it would have left King Arthur gaping,” said Maria loyally, “if Merlin had got off a few quaint cracks from his Black Book.”

“Yes, but I see how this whole thing could go very queer,” said Penny. “And I had a hint of it tonight. That poor kid Schnak thinks she’s tough, but she’s just a battered baby, and she’s being let in for something she certainly can’t handle. It worries me. I don’t want to be a busybody, or a soul-saver, or any of that, but surely we ought to do something!”

“I think you’re jealous,” said Powell.

“Jealous! Me! Geraint, I hate you! I’ve just decided. Ever since I met you I’ve wondered what I really think about you, you blathering, soapy Welsh goat, and now I know. You’re in this for what you can get, and you don’t give a maggoty shit for anybody else, and I hate you!”

“We’re all in everything for what we can get, professor,” said Powell. “And if not, why are we in it? What are you in it for? You don’t know, but you hope to find out. Fame? Fun? Something to fill up the gaps in your life? What’s your personal Snark? You really ought to find out.”

“This is where I get out,” said Penny. “Thank you for driving me home, Arthur. I can’t get out unless you get out first, Geraint.”

Powell stepped on to the pavement and bowed as he held the door for the furious Penny.

“You shouldn’t have said that, Geraint,” said Maria, when they drove away.

“Why not? I think it’s true.”

“All the more reason not to say it,” said Maria.

“You could be right about Penny,” said Darcourt. “Why is such an attractive woman unattached at her age? Why is she so flirtatious with men but it never leads to anything? Perhaps our Penny is looking asquint at something she doesn’t want to see.”