Memorandum to the Foreign Office
On this occasion, our distinguished guest, the ex-president of the American Union, Mr. Clement L. Valladigham, got as drunk as a fiddle. The eminent Democrat showed that he could be as profligate as any English Lord. He fumbled Mrs. A., kissed the shrieking Miss B., pinched the plump Mrs. C. black and blue, and ran at Miss D. with the flagrant intent to ravish her! Finally, after throwing our female guests into hysterics by behaving like an elephant in must,the noble beast was captured by main force, and carried upstairs, all four feet in the air,by our household staff. Within his room, Mrs. Valladigham was awaiting him, in shift and mobcap. There and then, to our considerable amazement, this remarkable man satiated his baffled lust on the unresisting body of his legitimate spouse and copiously vomited during the operation. Those who have seen Mrs. Valladigham would not think this latter incredible. News has now reached me that the former President of Texas, Samuel Houston, has died in Veracruz, in his Mexican exile. He was, I believe, awaiting any call to arms that might have brought him back to eminence; but the French alcaldes were likely too wily for him. Houston had his faults, I know, but he was easily worth ten of Clement Valladigham, who made a shrinking peace with the Confederacy, and has allowed the vultures of Red Manhattan Communism to gnaw the carcass of his dishonored country.
- LORD LISTON, 1870.
excerpt from The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
It is clear from this TRUFAX post to The Alt-Historian that Xenophone has made a habit of cutting the bumblepuppy as too low!