shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth.  Her hat and head sank.  Then the next one.  Her hat sank at once.  Then the next one:  a small old woman.  The priest bent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time.  Latin.  The next one.  Shut your eyes and open your mouth.  What?  Corpus:  body.  Corpse.  Good idea the Latin.  Stupefies them first.  Hospice for the dying.  They don’t seem to chew it:  only swallow it down.  Rum idea:  eating bits of a corpse.  Why the cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by one, and seek their places.  He approached a bench and seated himself in its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper.  These pots we have to wear.  We ought to have hats modelled on our heads.  They were about him here and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their stomachs.  Something like those mazzoth:  it’s that sort of bread:  unleavened shewbread.  Look at them.  Now I bet it makes them feel happy.  Lollipop.  It does.  Yes, bread of angels it’s called.  There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel.  First communicants.  Hokypoky penny a lump.  Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim.  They do.  I’m sure of that.  Not so lonely.  In our confraternity.  Then come out a bit spreeish.  Let off steam.  Thing is if you really believe in it.  Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.  Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox.  Hence those snores.  Blind faith.  Safe in the arms of kingdom come.  Lulls all pain.  Wake this time next year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair he had on.  Suppose he lost the pin of his.  He wouldn’t know what to do to.  Bald spot behind.  Letters on his back:  I.N.R.I?  No:  I.H.S.  Molly told me one time I asked her.  I have sinned:  or no:  I have suffered, it is.  And the other one?  Iron nails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary.  Do not deny my request.  Turn up with a veil and black bag.  Dusk and the light behind her.  She might be here with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly.  Their character.  That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning.  This very church.  Peter Carey, yes.  No, Peter Claver I am thinking of.  Denis Carey.  And just imagine that.  Wife and six children at home.  And plotting that murder all the time.  Those crawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always something shiftylooking about them.  They’re not straight men of business either.  O, no, she’s not here:  the flower:  no, no.  By the way, did I tear up that envelope?  Yes:  under the bridge.