The poem was to be called, tentatively, The Pet Beast. Enderby realized that a great deal of work had to be done on it, symbols clarified, technical knots unravelled. There was the disinterested craftsman, Daedalus, to be brought into it, the anti-social genius with the final answer of flight. There was Pasiphae's pantomime cow. He tried out, in his deep woollily inept voice, a line or two on a hushed audience of hanging dirty towels:

He, the cold king, judged cases in his dreams.

Awake, lithe at his task,

The other whistled, sawing pliant beams.

Law is what seems;

The Craftsman's place to act and not to ask.

The words, resounding in that tiny cell, acted at once like a conjuration. Just outside the flimsy door of Mr Enderby's ground-floor flat was the entrance-hall of the house itself. He heard the massive front door creak open and the hall seemed to fill with New Year revellers. He recognized the silly unresonant voice of the salesman who lived in the flat above, the stout-fed laugh of the woman who lived with him. There were other voices, not assignable to known persons but generic, voices of Daily Mirror-readers, ITV-viewers, HP-buyers, Babycham-drinkers. There were loud and cheerful greetings:

"Happy New Year, Enderby!"

"Prrrrrrrrp!"

The stout-fed woman's voice said, "I don't feel well. I'm going to be sick." She at once, by the sound of it, was. Someone called:

"Give us a poem, Enderby. 'Eskimo Nell' or 'The Good Ship Venus'."

"Sing us a song, Enderby."

"Jack," said the sick woman weakly, "I'm going straight up. I've had it."

"You go up, love," said the salesman's voice. "I'll be after you in a minute. Got to serenade old Enderby first." There was the noise of a staggering fall against the door of Enderby's flat, a choirmaster's "One two three", and then the vigorous ragged strains of "Ach Du Lieber Augustin", but with rude English words: