Book Extract 2

Further extract from my Manuscript wherein Mr Trellis commences the writing of his story: Propped by pillows in his bed in the white light of an incandescent petrol lamp, Dermot Trellis adjusted the pimples in his forehead into a frown of deep creative import. His pencil moved slowly across the ruled paper, leaving words behind it of every size. He was engaged in the creation of John Furriskey, the villain of his tale.

Extract from Press regarding Furriskey’s birth: We are in position to announce that a happy event has taken place at the Red Swan Hotel, where the proprietor, Mr Dermot Trellis, has succeeded in encompassing the birth of a man called Furriskey. Stated to be doing ‘very nicely’, the new arrival is about five feet eight inches in height, well built, dark, and clean-shaven. The eyes are blue and the teeth well formed and good, though stained somewhat by tobacco; there are two fillings in the molars of the left upperside and a cavity threatened in the left canine. The hair, black and of thick quality, is worn plastered back on the head with a straight parting from the left temple. The chest is muscular and well-developed while the legs are straight but rather short. He is very proficient mentally having an unusually firm grasp of the Latin idiom and a knowledge of physics extending from Boyle’s Law to the Leclanche Cell and the Greasepot photometer. He would seem to have a special aptitude for mathematics. In the course of a brief test conducted by our reporter, he solved a ‘cut’ from an advanced chapter of Hall and Knight’s Geometry and failed to be mystified by an intricate operation involving the calculus. His voice is light and pleasant, although from his fingers it is obvious that he is a heavy smoker. He is apparently not a virgin, although it is admittedly difficult to establish this attribute with certainty in the male.

Our Medical Correspondent writes:

The birth of a son in the Red Swan Hotel is a fitting tribute to the zeal and perseverance of Mr Dermot Trellis, who has won international repute in connexion with his researches into the theory of aestho-autogamy. The event may be said to crown the savant’s lifework as he has at least realized his dream of producing a living mammal from an operation involving neither fertilization nor conception.

(From fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk)