Bonkers Maisie in her cart, trundling past the madhouse wall. Has she read The Intellectual Part by author Rayner Heppenstall? Yes she has, a hundred times, it is the only book she owns. She can act it out in mimes while juggling several traffic cones. She trundles ‘long the rutted lane, heading for the distant sea. Sprites cavort within her brain, a brain no bigger than a bee. Dainty is her air and mien, though her cap is set askew. She is in love with Lothar Preen, the maestro. He is bonkers too.

By the sea they shall be wed, then sail away in a barquentine. Hearts of tin, hearts of lead, they shall yearn and they shall pine for the land o’ pomposity they have quit, where Mrs Gubbins’ll sit and knit commemorative tea cosies by the score, for Preen and Maisie, on the shore, like King Canute upon the beach. In the squall huge seabirds screech.

The cart’s abandoned. It will rot. There’s a moral lesson there, is there not?