might inflict.  And he plunged like a mad horse !  At 
last the welcome climax, and a perfect deluge of 
kisses bitten hard into his olive neck.  And then 
the luxurious confession with which this story be-
gan. 
Left to himself, Clayton invented incidentally 
twenty-three quite new curses, called Le W... a lit-
tle bitch, kissed the mark of the little bitch’s teeth 
on his hand, and generally conducted himself as 
an officer and a gentleman would do, provided he 
were also a devout Christian.  He foresaw trou-
ble.  It came pretty quickly.  Two days afterwards 
Clayton had to quit his lover’s room in a great 
hurry, as heavy footsteps trod the passage.  The 
Captain was in his dressing-gown and proved quite 
Arcadian beneath.  He was in bed in a jiffy, and 
discovered heat and moisture to an extent unwar-
ranted by the climate.  “ I thought you would never 
come, love,” sighed the charming middy, with re-
sourceful tact, “ so I’ve been whiling away the time.”  
“ I’m here now,” said his lover, and applied his lips 
to the dark altar of his desire.  That was very moist 
too, and the Captain’s inquisitive tongue soon pene-
trated its secrecies and became aware of a strong 
warm taste as of incense recently offered.  “ I envy 
you your amusement,” he observed, with delicate 
irony, “ you appear to have succeeded at last in fol-
lowing my advice to go and bugger yourself ! ”  He 
said no more just then, but came round with a 
sharp knife two days later to both the lovers and 
said he thought their accomplishments, if unique, 
were unnatural.  But the knife cut both knots at 
once ;  he told Lord Cartington at their tête-à-tête 
dinner the next day that there seemed to be no end 
to the variety of entrees which had as a basis —
 oysters. 
“ Katie ” Ambrose grew in wisdom and stature 
and in favour with god and man. 
 
[85]