Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

in the world, and that my duty was to my dead love. The Jesuit was subtle. To do this duty, he urged, you cannot remove this copper-stick of yours from the memorial stone. On the other hand I will assuredly cut it off if you do not so remove it, and that bloody quick ! I don’t want to wait here all day : I’ve a button-hole at home that needs my nosegay. Not so frigging fast, mister, if you please ! I retorted : there are two sides to every argument. Cut it off, if you can ! He instantly raised his sword, and directed a furious blow at the root of my aspersing-tool. The weapon broke. No ! I am not boasting of the hardness of my tenant-in-tail : I would recall to your memory the scientific fact (see the researches of Herbert Jackson) that a jet of water, if but it be swift enough, is similarly imper- vious to mere steel. In all these months of con- stant buggery, without rest or respite, the rate of my tupping was practically unimpaired. But the greatest man is he who in the moment of victory imposes a reasonable condition of peace, not he who insults and drives to desperation an adversary perhaps ready to make a compromise mutually beneficial. Come, father ! I addressed the astonished priest. Let us be going : there are better turds in the arse than ever came out of it. Such was my fond farewell to Stephen Jimson. But Leila, who ran to embrace me, was for the first time in all her life defeated. For seven days she buffeted my beard-splitter like Palinurus and the waves ; but she too failed. I had broken every record in the long-distance competition : and I needed rest. Even the pelvis of my boy love failed to rouse me : once the reaction had set in, nothing could stop it. On the eighth day Leila fell back with a weary and long-drawn howl : on the twenty- sixth she recovered sufficiently to try again : this time her efforts were crowned with success : a [60]