Warren had grown up dreaming of swings. He could scarcely think of a more glamorous, urbane, genteel thing than a smooth plank lashed to the stout limb of an oak by a twist of jute. A swing was a carnival ride in your own back garden, a miraculous indulgence upon which you could animate yourself just by kicking wind. In the storybooks young Warren had read, children who had swings took tea on vast, weedless lawns, wore unstained pinafores, and had private tutors who taught them improbable instruments like the bassoon. Mounted upon ivied swings, those blessed youths laughed and shrieked and
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