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| On the Eve of a New Repentance |
| now said brander that the goat & garter is no more me and gertie are spending new year's up the road the thatcher's head & bush a fine deal it is all you can eat for a tenner country & western by the sobbing armpit band and champagne at midnight extracting from his beard a baby hamster and warming it against his pipebowl mcguire eyed brander balefully the thatcher's head now is it? he replied at length the beer is watered the champagne is lemonade the landlord pissed in (not that you would notice) and the kitchen no cleaner than the city dump a fact known to every rat for miles yourself included does that mean asked brander crestfallen you will not join us? i will not mcguire snarled i value my health still more my sanity how then brander pressed will you spend your own sane evening? |
| mcguire replaced the hamster and fixed brander with a steely squint i he said will drink a bottle of the good rioja while repenting your sins my sins? brander was confused how can you repent my sins? your sins replied mcguire his squint never wavering are like passive smoking associating with you i commit them secondhand and have you then demanded brander no sins to call your own? mcguire nodded sagely that i have indeed envy, sloth, lust greed, thuggery and bicycle theft to name only the lesser of them then why pursued brander with remorseful logic do you not repent yours? oh as to that mcguire replied with gravity aforethought if i repented them i would have to give them up and then where would i be? up a pear tree conscience naked to the wind and no partridge |
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