'THE cleverest thing I ever did,' said the White Knight, 'was
to invent a new pudding during the meat course.' The
cleverest thing I ever did was a little parody of Milton for the
Week-end Review ( September 1931), which had offered prizes
for supplying the 'regrettable omission of any reference to
tooth-brushing in the description of Adam and Eve retiring
for the night' in Book IV of Paradise Lost:

[and eas'd the putting off
These troublesom disguises which wee wear,]
Yet pretermitted not the strait Command,
Eternal, indispensable, to off-cleanse
From their white elephantin Teeth the stains
Left by those tastie Pulps that late they chewd
At supper. First from a salubrious Fount
Our general Mother, stooping, the pure Lymph
Insorb'd, which, mingl'd with tart juices prest
From pungent Herbs, on sprigs of Myrtle smeard,
(Then were not Brushes) scrub'd gumms more impearl'd
Than when young Telephus with Lydia strove
In mutual bite of Shoulder and ruddy Lip.
This done (by Adam too no less) the pair
[Straight side by side were laid.]

The mordacious Telephus and Lydia are 'of course', as
the gossip-writers would say, from Horace, Odes, I, xiii.
Martin Armstrong, who had set the competition, gave me
the first prize, and was good enough to express the hope that
future editors of Milton would put my lines in the appro-
priate place.

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