“—I had rearranged the living-room so that two chairs were before the fire; for Urky, one of those old-fashioned deck-chairs made of teak that used to be seen on CPR liners, which I had filled with cushions and a steamer-rug in the McVarish tartan; for me a low chair of the sort that used to be called a ‘lady’s chair’, without arms; between the chairs I placed a low tea-table with cups and saucers, and the marijuana tea in a pot covered with a knitted cosy, made in the shape of a comical old woman. I set the record-player going and put on Urky’s entrance music; it was a precious old seventy-eight of Sir Harry Lauder singing ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’. I wore a baggy old woman’s dress (bad style that, but I really did look like an old bag, so let it stand) and a straggly grey wig. I must have looked like one of the witches in Macbeth. When Urky came in, wearing a long silk dressing-gown and slippers, I was ready to make my curtsy.

“—This was the build-up for the ceremony that Urky called The Two Old Edinburgh Ladies.

“—Innocent fun, in comparison with some parties at which I have assisted, but kinky in the naughty-nursery style that appealed to Urky. We assumed Edinburgh accents for this game; I hadn’t much notion what an Edinburgh accent was, but I copied Urky, and screwed up my mouth and spoke as if I were sucking a peppermint, and he seemed satisfied with my efforts.

“—We assumed names, too, and here it becomes rather complicated, for the names were Mistress Masham (that was me) and Mistress Morley. You get it? Probably not. Know then that Masham was the name of the Queen Anne’s confidante, and Morley was the name the Queen assumed when she chatted informally with her toady, and drank brandy out of a china cup, calling it her ‘cold tea’. What this pair had to with Edinburgh or with Urky you must not ask, because I don’t know, but in the world of fantasy the greatest freedom is allowed.”

Darcourt’s eye had run ahead of his reading, and he was embarrassed. “Do you really want me to go on?” he said. Of course we did.

“—It was his fantasy, not mine, and it wasn’t easy to improvise conversation to puff it out, and the burden was on me. What Urky liked was scandalous University gossip, offered on my part as if unwillingly and prudishly, as we sipped the marijuana tea and nibbled the marijuana cookies (I tried once or twice to get Urky to advance towards something a little more adventurous—a little acid on a sugar cube, or the teeniest jab with the monkey-pump—but he is what we call a chipper, flirting with drugs but scared to go very far. A Laodicean of vice.) So what kind of thing did I provide for him? Here is a sample that may interest you.

MRS. MORELY: And what do you hear of that sweet girl Miss Theotoky, Mistress Masham, my dear?

MRS MASHAM: Och, she keeps up with her studies, the poor lamb.

MRS. MORELY: The poor lamb—and why the poor lamb, Mistress Masham?

MRS MASHAM: Heaven defend us, Mistress Morley, my dear, how you take a poor body up! I meant nothing—nothing at all. Only that I hope she may not be falling into dissolute ways.

MRS. MORELY: But how could that be, when she has good Brother John to give her advice? Brother John, that best of holy men. Put aside your knitting, dear friend, and speak plainly.

MRS MASHAM: I fear good Brother John has lost all influence with her, Mistress Morley. If she has an adviser I doubt but it’s that fat priest Father Darcourt, may Heaven stand between her and his great belly.

MRS. MORELY: Preserve us, Mistress Masham, what do you mean by such hints?

MRS MASHAM: God send I suspect nobody wrongfully, Mistress Morley, but I have seen him looking after her with a verra moist eye, almost like a man enchanted.

MRS. MORELY: You make me tremble, ma’am! Does not her good mentor, Professor Hollier, do anything to keep her from harm?

MRS MASHAM: Och, Mistress Morley, ma’am, how should anyone of your known goodness understand the wickedness of men! I fear that same Hollier—!

MRS. MORELY: You are not going to speak any evil of him?

MRS MASHAM: Not unless the truth be evil, ma’am. But I fear he has—

MRS. MORELY: Another cup of tea!—Go on, I can bear the worst.

MRS MASHAM: I never said whoremaster! Mind, I never said it! Who’s to say he was not tempted? The girl—the Theotoky girl—I blush to say it—she’s no better than a wee besom! She can entice the finest of them! Have ye looked at her likeness lately? That bronze figure now, that you had from poor Mr. Cornish—

“—Then Urky looked at the bronze and—nothing personal, you understand, Molly, but simply in aid of Urky’s little game and in the line of duty as a parasite—I had previously put a dab of salad oil on the cleft of the mons, which is such a charming feature of that work, so that it seemed moist and inviting. An imaginative stroke, don’t you think? It threw Urky into a regular spasm, so that it was touch and go whether or not he might anticipate his Little Xmas, which was supposed to be held back for the topper of the evening.

“—That was the object of this elaborate masquerade; to bring Urky very slowly to the boil. Dirty gossip and plenty of tea and cookies did the trick—the gossip to excite, the Mary Jane to hold back—with the pink ribbon as the fuse to his rocket.

“—You two were not the only ones to cut a figure in these fantasies, but you were regular favourites. Urky had a weak hankering after you, Molly, and as for Clem, I liked to toy with him to please Urky, because though I fully understand and forgive, I was well aware that Clem felt he couldn’t drag me after his splendid career more than so much; one does what one can for old friends, but of course some must drop by the way. Clem did what he felt he could for me, but he was damn certain I wasn’t going to be allowed to be too much of a nuisance. So I had some fun with you two, but as you will discover, I have recompensed your real kindness in fullest measure, pressed down and running over.

“—Another favourite figure in the ceremonies was Ozy Froats—always good for a giggle. There were lots of others; Urky’s vast spite could embrace them all. But it was only play, you know. The popular sex-manuals urge their readers to give spice to the old familiar act by building fantasies around it. Who would grudge Urky his pleasure, or blame me for ministering to it, when the role of parasite was the only one left to me? Not you, dear friends; certainly not you.

“—Urky liked a good hour and a half of this sort of thing, during which his pleasure mounted, his laughter became harder to conceal under the role of Mrs. Morley. The lewd gossip pricked him on, while the Old Mary Jane held him back. As he talked and listened he worked his legs up in the deck-chair and his dressing-gown fell apart so that his bare bottom was to be seen. That was the cue for my culminating sequence, thus:

MRS MASHAM: Mistress Morley, ma’am, forgive the freedom in an old, though humble, friend, but your gown is disordered, ma’am.

MRS. MORELY: No, no, I’m sure.

MRS MASHAM: Yes, yes, I’m sure.

MRS. MORELY: It’s nothing. Don’t distress yourself, ma’am.

MRS MASHAM: But for your own good, ma’am, as a friend, ma’am, I shall be compelled to bind you, ma’am. Indeed I shall.

MRS. MORELY: Nay, nay, my good creature, you don’t know what you’re doing.

MRS MASHAM: That I do. It’s the Urquhart blood declaring itself. See—there’s old Sir Thomas himself looking down at you and laughing, the sly old Rabelaisian. He knows your nature may declare itself, and it’s for me to act to preserve you from shame before him. Bound you must be.

“—Then I would produce some nice white sash-cord and bind Urky into the chair, just tight enough to give him the thrill of being under constraint, but not enough to hurt him. By this time he was well and truly sexually aroused. Not a pretty sight, but I was not supposed to notice. Instead—