Peregrine's Progress

Book Excerpt: ... T (covers ears). Horrors! this ribaldry, George Vereker!UNCLE GEORGE. O Lord! (Sinks into chair and gloomy silence.) MY UNCLE JERVAS (rising gracefully, taking aunt Julia's indignant hands and kissing them gallantly). George is perfectly right, dear soul. Our Peregrine requires a naked mauley (clenches Aunt Julia's white hand into a fist)--something like this, only bigger and harder--applied to his torso--UNCLE GEORGE. Of course, above the belt, you'll understand, Julia! Now the Camberwell Chicken--MY UNCLE JERVAS. Applied, I say, with sufficient force to awake him to the stern--shall we say the harsh realities of life. AUNT JULIA. Life can be real without sordid brutality. UNCLE JERVAS. Not unless one is blind and deaf, or runs away and hides from his fellows like a coward; for brutality, alas, is a very human attribute and slumbers more or less in each one of us, let us deny it how we will. UNCLE GEORGE. True enough, Jervas, and as you'll remember when I f...