The Poor Mouth_ A Bad Story About the Hard Life - Flann O'Brien [11]
–Yes, I think I understand.
–Ah, Father, you don’t know how dear to my heart this struggle is and the peace that will come down on top of my head when it is happily ended for ever. Decent people should look after women—isn’t that right? The weaker sex. Didn’t God make them the same as he made you and me. Father?
–He surely did.
–Then why don’t we give them fair play? Mean to say, you or I can walk into a pub—
–I beg your pardon, Collopy. I certainly can not walk into a public house. You never saw a priest in a public house in your life.
–Well, I can walk into a pub and indeed I often do.
–Well, well, Collopy, you are full of ideas but I must be moving. I didn’t realize the hour.
–Good enough, but you will call again. Think about what I’ve said. Can I offer you a final glasheen for the road?
–No thanks indeed, Collopy. Good night now lads, and mind the Greek article haw-hee-taw.
In unison:
–Good night, Father Fahrt.
He went out with dignity, Mr Collopy his escort.
6
IT had been a dull autumn day and in the early evening I decided that the weather would make it worth while looking for roach in the canal. My rod was crude enough but I had hooks of a special size which I had put away in a drawer in the bedroom. I got out the rod and went up for a hook. To my surprise the drawer was littered with sixpenny postal orders and also envelopes addressed to the brother describing him as ‘Director, General Georama Gymnasium’. I decided to leave this strange stuff alone, took a hook and went off up along the canal. Perhaps my bait was wrong but I caught nothing and was back home in about an hour. The brother was in the bedroom when I returned, busy writing at the smaller table.
–I was out looking for roach, I remarked, and had to get a hook in that drawer. I see it’s full of sixpenny postal orders.
–Not full, he said genially. There are only twenty-eight. But keep that under your hat.
–Twenty-eight is fourteen bob.
–Yes, but I expect a good few more.
–What’s all this about General Georama Gymnasium?
–Well, it’s my name for the moment, he said.
–What’s Georama?
–If you don’t know what a simple English word means, the Brothers in Synge Street can’t be making much of a hand of you. A georama is a globe representing the earth. Something like what they have in schools. The sound of it goes well with general and gymnasium. That’s why I took it. Join the GGG.
–And where did all those postal orders come from?
–From the other side. I put a small ad. in one of the papers. I want to teach people to walk the high wire.
–Is that what the General Georama Gymnasium is for, for heaven’s sake?
–Yes. And it’s one of the cheapest courses in the world. A great number of people want to walk the high wire and show off. Some of them may be merely mercenary and anxious to make an easy, quick fortune with some great circus.
–And are you teaching them this by post?
–Well, yes.
–What’s going to happen if one of them falls and gets killed?
–A verdict of death by misadventure, I suppose. But it’s most unlikely because I don’t think any of them will dare to get up on the wire any distance from the ground. If they’re young their parents will stop them. If they’re old, rheumatism, nerves and decayed muscles will make it impossible.
–Do you mean you’re going to have a correspondence course with those people?
–No. They get a copy of my four-page book of instructions. Price sixpence only. It’s for nothing. A packet of fags and a box of matches would cost you nearly that, and no fag would give you the thrill of thinking about the high wire.
–This looks to me like a swindle.
–Rubbish. I’m only a bookseller. The valuable instructions and explanations are given by Professor Latimer Dodds. And he has included warnings of the danger as well.
–Who is Professor Latimer Dodds?
–A retired trapeze and high