37
“Beware the fairer s*x,” the serpent told them in the time between, “beneath her soft skin lies naivety or cunning, and it is a puzzle as to which.”
Scotland
c. 1500 A.D.
Whack. The priest strikes young Andrew about the shoulders. “You bampot, why ye parents named you for our blessed patron Saint Andrew, I shall never know. Once again, and this time speak it correctly.”
John, the new pupil in Latin class, leans toward me whispering, “Father ‘tis proud of the lash.” I nod in agreement and a younger boy sitting with us at the long library table quashes a snicker.
The priest says it true. Andrew is an i***t, rumor having it that the midwife, startled at his ugly birth face, had let him slip him onto the floor. Whatever the reason, Andrew never fails to bumble the conjugation of Latin
