Daniel ran out and sacked an ant-nest. He returned in triumph carrying the nucleus of an anthill on the flat of a shovel. In the front room Wilkins had begun dictating, and Charles Comstock scribbling, a letter back to the King – not the substantive part (as they didn't have an answer yet), but the lengthy paragraphs of apologies and profuse flattery that had to open it: 'With your brilliance you illuminate the places that have long, er, languished in, er – '