For my cupboard at The Dabbler this week, I exhumed a brace of ancient tales buried, like Chilean miners, deep in the Hooting Yard archives, dusted them down, glued them together, and applied a lick o' lacquer to freshen them up for a new readership. And in a promptly-posted comment, I preempt an objection that may be raised by pedants on the lookout for flaws in what is a piece of startling, even brutal, realism.