Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

Abandoned in disgust. You will wonder however how it was that Leila’s monthlies did not last out the 1000, by the figures only 14 hrs, 57 min. The answer was that she was peculiarly constructed in this way. Her so-called “ monthlies ” occurred every four days, and lasted but twelve hours, never more. I was consequently biffed off every time about 925 or so. The wisdom of this provision of Nature was soon evident. The desirability of breeding another Leila had lent wings (to use a metaphor) to the reproductive mechanism of the lousy-notched barrack-hack. So that what follows will occasion no surprise in the truly scientific mind. We celebrated the 900th creamy, as I said be- fore, with a brief but glad hymn of praise to the God who had made us, and I withdrew my dripping bushwhacker for a moment in order to wipe it dry — nothing is so deleterious to the proper enjoy- ment of a game at Hey Gammer Cook as the too great slitheriness of the lady’s rattle-bollocks — and in returning it to its sheath, the lassie was so pleased that she forgot for a second her role for protecting herself against danger of impregnation. This has always been to constrict the vagina in two places : near the vulva, to tighten on the master of ceremonies : and at the cervix, to prevent any of the fertilizing fluid, or, as she loved to call it, tool- treacle, from doing its deadly work. The remaining space, bigger than the Caves of Kentucky, was de- voted to a cloak-room during the season, and to a universal shit-house for the wonderful collection of worms and other reptiles that she always loved to have about her. She had one tapeworm in particu- lar — a fine fellow, I remember him well, he had an intellect like a Newton, and a tail like a tooth- pick — whom she dearly loved. So that there was no risk of harm happening. But on this occasion [75]