I would sing to you of Tarleton, of the gleets, of the balcony, if I could. If I could sing I would. But how can I sing, mouth crammed with pebbles, penned in a pound, atop the tor? And what an irony that it was Tarleton who bustled me hence, arms flapping, half blinding me with the glint of his shiny shiny epaulettes? I would have sung of him surely, and without smirking. Cars passed below as we climbed the tor. I would have waved to them, to their drivers, for help, if I thought help would come. My mind was a chaos. The higher we climbed, the tinier the cars appeared, until they seemed like motes of dust. They put the pound at the top of the tor to discourage attempts to escape. As further discouragement, the fence was electrified. Tarleton had keys to the panel upon which a lever or knobs or whatever could be pulled or depressed or whatever to cut off the circuit, temporarily, to allow the gate to be opened. He crammed my mouth with pebbles before he pushed me into the pound. I thought of the gleets, and of Krakatoa.

Oh, Tarleton, Tarleton! What became of the balcony you? Things were so different then. Fresh from your Messerschmitt, not a hint of the gleets, eating a crab apple and suffering in silence. It was noble suffering. Even the crab apple was noble. Certainly your shiny shiny epaulettes gave you a noble cast. I wanted to fashion a laurel wreath for your brow, but there were no laurels. Just the bare balcony and a vista of snow. Nor did I sing then, though I could have done, I ought to have done, I wish I had done. I would have sung of you, Tarleton, and recorded it upon magnetic tape, and had a platter made of it, and it would have shot to the top of the hit parade. It would have dislodged Russ Conway.

Regrets, regrets. Now there are pebbles in my mouth, and I am penned in a pound, and you have stomped away back down the tor. You will get into your car, parked in a gully, tiny as a mote of dust, from up here, and you will drive away, or be driven away, by your chauffeur, his own epaulettes less shiny shiny than yours, ignoble epaulettes. And when you drive away, will you think of the gleets, the balcony, Tarleton? Or will your head be filled with flummery?

The dog in the pound on the tor is small and hairy and oriental. Its yap curdles my blood. Would that the pebbles had been crammed in my ears and not my mouth! Or as well as, for all the difference it would make. The sun passes behind a cloud. The electrified fence hums. I think, not sing, of Tarleton, of the gleets, of the balcony. And Boodles yaps.