Once he had peeled off his posing pouch which he wears under his exercise briefs which he wears under his swimming trunks which he wears under his perambulating shorts, Lionel stood for a while with his legs apart and his arms raised, for the purpose, I guessed, of letting the air circulate around those parts which had been stored away all winter. Then, with slow rhythmic movements, he began the sort of examination of himself that is recommended to women for the location of unfamiliar lumps in the breasts; except that he didn’t confine himself to one area, but examined his neck and his armpits also, and the region of his lumbar ganglion and his prostate, his rib cage, his kidneys, his liver, and, with lingering deliberation, his testicles. This was too much for the schoolgirls who, being visitors to the village, had never before seen an adult male standing on argillaceous rock and rolling his balls minutely around the outstretched palm of his hand.

It puzzled me also, I must confess, although I didn’t almost fall into the sea with laughter, because if those were cancer lumps Lionel Turnbull was searching for then he must have let himself go quite badly over the winter. Chapter V of Lad of Destiny states categorically that cancer is merely a consequence of lifestyle, being ascribable entirely to smoking, television, and bad bodily habits. From the confident manner in which he plunged finally into the water I deduced that he had found nothing in his body that shouldn’t have been there, but it has not gone without my noticing it that he thought he might.