Precisely at the moment in yesterday’s ceremony when the Superintendent Registrar of the Berkshire County Council, a certain David Owen, inquired solemnly of Lauren and me whether or not we were aware of any legal impediments to our wedlock, Dorian, reclining with a most serious and absorbed expression on his still jaundiced face in John Winter’s lap in the first row of a cavernous marriage room, relieved himself most loudly and with much gurgling, and the entire gathering, consisting of Lauren’s brother Greg, our neighbors and friends John and Jennie Winter, the Superintendent Registrar, another employee of the Register Office minding the register itself, and the two of us, burst into laughter, delivered from the suffocating solemnity for a brief moment and fortified for the remainder of the proceedings. When the ceremony was over, John passed Dorian back to me. “This story will follow the poor fellow all his life,” he smiled compassionately.