61
they get the slightest chance. My mother actually rode a gentleman under my very eyes. I was in the parlour when a friend happened to call, and had I been sent out suspicions might have been aroused, so I was made to believe that I was a very naughty little boy, and I was put in a corner with my face to the wall. Moreover, she told me that if I cried or turned round she'd put me to bed; but if I were good she'd give me a cake. I obeyed for one or two minutes, but after that, hearing an unusual rustle, and a loud breathing and panting, I saw what I could not understand at the time, but what was clear to me many years afterwards.'
"He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, then smiled and added,—'Well, sit down there.'
"I did as I was bidden. He first knelt down to say his prayers to Priapus—which was, after all, a more dainty bit to kiss than the old Pope's gouty toe—and having bathed and tickled the little god with his tongue, he got a-straddle over me. As he had already lost his maidenhood long ago, my rod entered far more easily in him than his had done in me, nor did I give him the pain that I had
