MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1223] for someone to be faithful to me, and for me to be faithful to.
[1224] Then I opened wide my eyes so that the candidates might admire
their bottomless depths and the way they phosphoresced at all we
left unspoken. [1225] Our faces were so close that I felt on mine the
wafts of hot air and sprays of saliva, and he too, no doubt, on
his. [1226] I can see him still, the fit of laughter past, wiping his
eyes and mouth, and myself, with downcast eyes, pained by my
wetted trousers and the little pool of urine at my ^feet.

[1227] Now
that I have no further use for him I may as well give his name,
[1228] Jackson. [1229] I was sorry he had not a cat, or a young ^dog, or better
still an old dog. [1230] But all he had to offer in the way of dumb com-
panions was a pink and grey parrot. He used to try and teach it
to say, Nihil in intellectu etc. [1231] These first three words the bird
managed well enough, but the celebrated restriction was too much
for it, all you heard was a series of squawks.

[1232] This annoyed Jackson
who kept nagging at it to begin all over again. Then Polly flew
into a rage and retreated to a corner of its cage. [1233] It was a very
fine cage, with every convenience, perches, swings, trays, troughs,
stairs and cuttle-bones. [1234] It was even overcrowded, personally I
would have felt cramped. [1235] Jackson called me the merino, I don't
know why, perhaps because of the French expression.

[1236] I could not
help thinking that the notion of a wandering herd was better adapt-
ed to him than to me. [1237] [⁁]^But I have never thought anything but wind,
the same that was never measured to me. [1238] My relations with Jackson
were of s^hort duration. [1239] I could have put up with him as a frieⁿd,
but unfortunately he found me disgusting, as did Johnson, Wilson,