Hillary Clinton tells us she is recovering from a mild case of pneumonia, but less than halfof American voters believe her belated explanation of why she appeared to faint leaving a 9/11 commemoration. If she wants to understand why, she can find the answer in a children’s poem. In his 1907 classic, “Matilda Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death,” Hilaire Belloc tells the story of a young girl who “told such Dreadful Lies, It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes.” One day Matilda calls in a false alarm to London’s fire brigade, and as punishment is left home alone while her aunt goes to the theater: