Clifton

Sir Gerald Inhali with the fragrant Lady Valerie matrimonially dwelt at Clifton, behind a modestly pretentious pair of wrought iron gates, which hinged on a pair of pleasantly weathered redbrick columns topped each by a large stone or, as I think more likely, concrete ball, sedulously faked. This arrangement fronted a short gravelled drive, at the end whereof a large mock-Georgian house had contrived to wedge itself under the top…

…serves me - bringing me to this vey place in order to view the serpents. We are in Clifton, I think you will find, Valerie.”

…call, and one to which he not infrequently returned was the municipal zoo, on that Northern edge of Clifton Village lying just beneath the lip of Durdon Downs. There, not having the wherewithal to effect ingress to that establishment, he loitered about the entrance in his customary role of disgustingly bohemian troubadour, accosting the civilians who emerged thence, and admixing his unaccountably patronising requests for pennies for the juggler with…

The being so peculiarly compared to Ariosto’s cuckolded knight flapped away then towards Clifton, and disappeared over the lip of Blackboy Hill. The owner of the black eyes and the black beak and the broguish voice took wing then himself, and flapped away in the general direction of Westbury-on-Trim.