Eating Mammals

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John Barlow. Eating Mammals

Contents

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II

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VII

VIII

I

II

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Eating Mammals

JOHN BARLOW

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For the duration of the dinner itself we sat in a back room, glad not to be partaking of the paltry feast which four dozen Freemasons were busy praising through grinning, shiny faces, each one of them eager no doubt to disguise their disappointment. Mulligan decanted six pints of the orange liquid into a tall, vaguely Egyptian-looking jug, and took occasional sips from the one remaining bottle. He explained the part I would play: I would be dumb, although only for effect, not as a stated disability. To this I had no objection, since I am by nature a retiring person, and of course my tongue was still throbbing. I was also beginning to feel unwell, although I would later recognise this as stage fright.

The rumbling, masculine conversation out in the dining hall turned by degrees to a controlled, middle-class raucousness. They sang a song, or perhaps it was a hymn, it was hard to tell, and there were a few short speeches which were greeted with hearty approbation. Then The Great Michael ‘Cast Iron’ Mulligan was introduced, to a combination of polite applause and a good deal of muttering.

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