Prickle

“ It was not, however, so much the fact that Prickles had gone that was so noticeable as the fact that he had arrived. His arrival seemed to follow his going as one slide follows another on a screen. One would never have believed such quickness of him; nor, as a matter of fact, do I think he would have believed it of himself; but—well, love is a mighty power, and makes folks do some strange things.
What he found was two ditch-banks, pock-marked with the untidy dug-outs of the rat-people, smelling ratty, and looking worse, one original ray of moonlight lighting the beaten ditch between. ”

“ This animal, which is from its muzzle to the root of the tail sometimes three feet in length, is covered with hard prickles, the feet, the face, and part of its tail excepted. These prickles are about three inches long, yellow at the root, a dark chesnut colour in the middle, and white at the points; they are extremely sharp, highly polished, and moveable, serving for the creature’s defence, which, when irritated, it dresses in [224] array, and makes a formidable appearance before its adversary; at other times these prickles lie flat on its back, something like the bristles of a hog. ”

“ He lies like a hedgehog roll'd up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles. ”

“ That’s the beauty of Christian Science.” “But I say, Priscilla, weren’t you sick?” “Not a bit. When Father heard about it next morning he said he thought there must be something in Aunt Juliet’s theory after all. He has stuck to that ever since, though he says it doesn’t apply to influenza. She had a great idea about fresh air one time, and got up a carpenter to take the window frames, windows and all, clean out of my room. I used to have to borrow hairpins from Rose—she’s the under housemaid and a great friend of mine—so as to fasten the bedclothes on to the mattress. ”

“ Then Rose got Dr. O’Hara to haul the tooth and the swelling went down. Aunt Juliet said it was Christian Science cured her. And of course it may have been. You never can tell really what it is that cures people.”
“I wonder,” said Frank, “if I could manage to get down to the boat to-morrow. You said something about a boat, didn’t you, Priscilla? Is it far?”
“I’ll work that all right for you. As it just happens, luckily enough there’s an old bath-chair in a corner of the hay-loft. I came across it last hols when I was looking for a bicycle pump I lost. ”

“ Prickly Porky was on the ground at the foot of a tree, and he was rolling over and kicking and clawing at his mouth, from which a little piece of bark was hanging. It was such a strange performance that Redeye simply stared for a minute. Then in a flash it came to him what it meant. Prickly Porky was choking, and if something wasn't done to help him, he might choke to death! ”

“ Frank, determined to do the thing handsomely if he did it at all, passed half a crown to Priscilla over the back of the bath chair.
“My dear child,” he said, “buy macaroons by all means if you like them. Buy as many as you want.”
Priscilla received the half-crown without any appearance of shame.
“If you’re prepared to lash out money in that way,” she said, “we may as well have a tongue. Brannigan has small ones at one and sixpence. Brawn of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener. The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a rowlock. ”

“ You can’t play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma passed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. But Ma didn’t do it on purpose, I guess. She never had the mumps and didn’t know how discouraging a pickle is. Darn if I didn’t feel as though I had been struck in the butt of the ear with a brick. But about Pa. He has been fuller’n a goose ever since New Year’s day. I think its wrong for women to tempt feeble minded persons with liquor on New Year’s. Now me and my chum, we can take a drink and then let it alone. ”

“ Priscilla opened her eyes suddenly and very wide. I don't know what folly he would have perpetrated next, or what sillinesses were on the tip of his tongue, or what meaning he still chose to read in her look, but an instant afterwards he was brought down for ever from the giddy heights of his illusions: Priscilla boxed his ears.
I am sorry to have to record it. It is always sweeter if a woman does not box ears. ”

“ Now prick has done his worst, That bliss for which my cunt so long did stay, He gave to fancy, and 'tis thrown away. OFFICINA:
Thus 'tis, with lovers young and full of fire. Fruition is as forward as desire. They're apt to make their compliments before They come to see the keyhole of the door. Oh cursed imposter, quashed to perfect joy That does love's fruit before 'tis ripe destroy. The worst of tarses may well make such moan When the prick-maker cannot rule his own. ”

“ Prick is its friend, its first cousin, I ween,
Tho' prick I confess is a rare go-between;
Prick to a woman much joy can impart,
And prick is a thing that she loves in her heart!
Gee up, &c.
Then here's to the female who yields to a man,
And here's to the man who'll fuck when he can,
For fucking creates all our joy on earth,
And from fucking you know, we all date our birth. ”

“ A cormorant, balanced on the top of one of the perches outside Delginish, sat with wings outstretched and neck craned forward, peering out to sea. A fleet of terns floated motionless on the water beyond the island. Two gulls with lazy flappings of their wings, flew westwards down the bay. Priscilla, rowing with short, decisive strokes, drove the Tortoise forward.
“It’s going to be blazing hot,” she said, “and altogether splendidly glorious. I feel rather like a dove that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. Don’t you?”
Frank did. ”

“ And prick e'er has been a great friend unto cunt!
When nature to woman gave two mouths, she will'd,
Of course, that they both should be equally filled,
And if women will look after one mouth, you know
That prick will look after the mouth that's below!
Stiff-standing, glorious prick!
Voluptuous, rubicund prick!
Oh, surely, of fortune it came in the nick,
Good-natured dame Nature to give us a prick!
When sorrow torments lovely woman, oh dear.
A mighty good fucking will banish despair;
If her belly but aches, why we all know the trick,
There's nothing can ease it so well as a prick! ”

“ If your ankle isn’t too bad we might as well have lunch. You grub out the food when I get off my shoes and stockings, I’m a bit damp about the legs.”
Frank felt under the thwart through which the mast was stepped and drew out one by one the parcel of macaroons, the tongue, the tin of peaches and the bottles. Priscilla wrung out her stockings over the stern of the boat and then hung them on the gunwale to dry. She propped her shoes up against the stern where they would get as much breeze as possible. ”

“ Never was sick woman so much comforted as Mrs. Jones. She who had been disinclined to speak above a whisper when Priscilla went in was able at the end of the visit to pour forth conversation in streams, and quite loud conversation, and even interspersed with chuckles. All Friday Priscilla had tried to help in the arranging of her cottage, and had made herself and Fritzing so tired over it that on Saturday she let him go up alone and decided that she would, for her part, now begin to do good to the people in the village. ”

“ It never seems to enter his head that he is making other people happy just by being happy himself and saying so.
At first he hardly noticed the strange noise, but when he stopped singing for a bit of a rest, he heard it very plainly, and it sounded so very queer that he flew up the hill towards the place from which it seemed to come, and there his bright eyes soon discovered Prickly Porky. Right away he saw that Prickly Porky was in some kind of trouble, and that it was he who was making the queer noise. ”

“ Now Prickly Porky’s stomach was very, very full. He was fat and naturally lazy, so when he came to the doorstep of an old house just on the edge of the Green Forest he sat down to rest. It was sunny and warm there, and the longer he sat the less like moving he felt. He looked about him with his dull eyes and grunted to himself.
“It’s a deserted house. Nobody lives here, and I guess nobody’ll care if I take a nap right here on the doorstep,” said Prickly Porky to himself. “And I don’t care if they do,” he added, for Prickly Porky the Porcupine was afraid of nobody and nothing. ”

“ Priscilla rode alongside, keeping within speaking distance of Frank.
“But my ankle’s not broken,” he said.
“It may be. Anyhow I expect a jar is just as bad for a sprain. Very likely the lecturer said so and Sylvia Courtney forgot to tell me. Pretty rotten luck this, for you, Cousin Frank, on account of the fishing. You can’t possibly fish and the river’s in splendid order. Father said so yesterday. But perhaps Aunt Juliet will be able to cure you. She thinks she can cure anything.” ”

“ So Priscilla's father filled his pipe, and Maggie stood on the steps and blew twice, and soon a cab came, and off they bowled to the little street off Regent Street.
Priscilla s mother was quite right. The shop was shut; but Priscilla's father hammered on the side door, and soon it was opened by a very little servant in a cap all on one side.
"Is Mr. Dear in?" asked Priscilla's father.
"No, he's not," said the very little servant.
"Is Mrs. Dear in?" asked Priscilla's father.
"There isn't a Mrs. Dear," said the very little servant. ”

“ Frank felt as the poet Lucretius did when from the security of a sheltered nook on the side of a cliff he watched boats tossing on the sea. The sense of neighbouring strain and struggle added to the completeness of his own repose. A bed of mignonette scented the air agreeably. Some white roses glimmered faintly in the twilight. Far off, a grey still shadow, lay the bay. Frank’s cigarette dropped, half smoked, from his fingers. He slept deliciously.
A few minutes later he woke with a start. Priscilla stood over him. ”

“ A faint air of wind stole across from Inishbawn. The Tortoise, utterly without steerage way, felt it and turned slowly towards it. It was as if she stretched her head out for another such gentle kiss as the wind gave her. Priscilla felt it, and with returning animation made a plunge for an unusually large jelly fish, captured it and held it up triumphantly.
“It’s a pity you’re not out after jelly fish, Miss Rutherford,” she said, “instead of sponges. ”

“ Priscilla hauled at the rope of the centreboard.
“Run her up on the beach,” she shouted. “If we do knock a hole in her it can’t be helped. Oh glory, glory! look at that!”
One of the tents tore itself from its fastenings, flapped wildly in the air and then collapsed on the ground, a writhing heaving mass of soaked canvas. The Tortoise struck heavily on the shore. Priscilla leaped over her bows and ran up the beach with the anchor in her hand. She rammed one of its flukes deep into the gravel. Then she turned towards the boat and shouted:
“You help Frank out, Miss Rutherford. ”

“ In this open stretch of trees and rock Priscilla set up her own god. She had found the bleached skull of a cow in one of her father's pastures; this gruesome thing mounted upon a forked stick, its empty eye-sockets and ears filled with twigs and dried grasses, was sufficiently pagan and horrible to demand an entirely unique form of worship, and this Priscilla proceeded to evolve. ”

“ Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with a syrup of the dormice pye, which went to-pieces in the general wreck: and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow's stomach, which, bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably, that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect. ”

“ You are sometimes astonished to see a pickerel far up some now shrunken rill, where it is a mere puddle by the roadside. I have stooped to drink at a clear spring no bigger than a bushel basket in a meadow, from which a rill was scarcely seen to dribble away, and seen lurking at its bottom two little pickerel not so big as my finger, sole monarchs of this their ocean, and who probably would never visit a larger water.
In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is only another name for tameness. ”

“ We remained locked in each other's arms, my prick still engulphed in its tight and exciting sheath. We fondled and prattled, until it became again in a state of violent erection, equally stimulating her tight little cunt, so that we were forced to recommence our love encounter. I found that my dear little sister possessed naturally the power of throbbing on or nipping a prick, which the French call casse-noisette. It is a great gift and adds immensely to the man's pleasure, and I should think to the woman's too. ”

“ I should not like to go so far as to assert that no imitation diamond, ruby, pearl, or emerald ever proceeded from Priscilla's lips again. Habits are not cured in a day, and fairies—however old they may be—are still fairies; so it did occasionally happen that a mock jewel made an unwelcome appearance after one of Priscilla's more unguarded utterances. But she was always frightfully ashamed and abashed by such an accident, and buried the imitation stones immediately in a corner of the garden. ”

“ He hasn't got to be anything else, has he? He's a played-out sort of bounder, who wants to have a good time and hasn't the pluck, don't you know?"
"Are all prigs bounders?" asked Katharine, in a voice of dismay.
"Oh, I expect so! It doesn't matter, does it? At least, there's a chap in our office who is a bit of a prig, and he isn't a bounder exactly. He's a very decent sort of chap, really; I don't half mind him, myself. But they always call him a prig because he goes in for being so mighty saintly ”