Unsuspected Veracity

More humanity! I said, surprised. But your nephew seems to have invented the part about the killing of the dolphin! I didn't see that in your version.

Well, yes, he may have invented it, but then he evinced much sorrow at the outcome. What greater example of humanity could you find than that?

I think he was a bit of a trickster, I said. He pretended he got the story from you to give it more cred. If I recall, he said he got it from someone of 'unsuspected veracity'.

Yes, said Pliny the Elder fondly, I always liked that expression. Anyway, his intentions were good. He wanted his friend to turn it into a poem.

Ah, I said. I get it. Art justifies anything. Do you know, the other day I remembered that as a child I was taken to see a film called Boy on a Dolphin. So I googled it, and found a You Tube site that showed the first 5 minutes of the film. It was so weird. It all came back to me. I was only 8 years old. I was expecting to see a real boy on a dolphin. All I saw was a murky underwater statue of one. As if that wasn't bad enough, Sophia Loren gets her skimpy swimming garment caught in some rocks and gashes her leg struggling to get free. When she comes up there's technicolour blood running all down her leg. I could hardly look.

How disappointing, said Pliny. Sophia Loren you say? Was she not a woman of great beauty?

She was, I replied, and particularly so when wet. Would you like to see her on the You Tube?

Yes, indeed, said Pliny. I would.