“Used to. About three years ago. She’s gone oil though,” said Meats indifferently.
Michael, to hide his astonishment at the contemptuous suggestion of damaged goods, enquired what Meats had been doing since he left the Monastery.
“Want to know?” asked Meats.
Michael assured him that he did.
“You’re rather interested in me, aren’t you? Well, I can tell you a few things and that’s a fact. I don’t suppose that there’s anybody in London who could tell you more. But you might be shocked.”
“Oh, shut up!” scoffed Michael, blushing with indignation.
Then began the shameless narration of the late Brother Aloysius, whom various attainments had enabled to gain an equal profit from religion and vice. Sometimes as Michael listened to the adventures he was reminded of Benvenuto Cellini or Casanova, but almost immediately the comparison would be shattered by a sudden sanctimonious blasphemy which he found nauseating. Moreover, he disliked the sly procurer that continually leered through the man’s personality.
“You seem to have done a lot of dirty work for other people,” Michael bluntly observed at last.
“My dear old chap,” replied Meats, “of course I have. You see, in this world there are lots of people who can always square their own consciences, if the worst of what they want to do is done for them behind the scenes as it were. You never yet heard a man confess that he ruined a girl. Now, did you? Why, I’ve heard the most shocking out-and-outers anyone could wish to meet brag that they’ve done everything, and then turn up their eyes and thank God they’ve always respected real purity. Well, I never respected anything or anybody. And why should I? I never had a chance. Who was my mother? A servant. Who was my father? A minister, a Nonconformist minister in Wales. And what did the old tyke do? Why, he took the case to court and swore my mother was out for blackmail. So she went to prison, and he came smirking home behind the village band; and all the old women in the place hung out Union Jacks to show they believed in him. And then his wife gave a party.”
Michael looked horrified and felt horrified at this revelation of vileness, and yet, all the time he was listening, through some grotesquery of his nerves he was aware of thinking to himself the jingle of Little Bo-peep.