Soon they were in the press of carriages heading for that area of Victorian London we have rather mysteriously—since it was central in more ways than one—dropped from our picture of the age: an area of casinos (meeting places rather than gaming rooms), assembly cafes, cigar “divans” in its more public parts (the Haymarket and Regent Street) and very nearly unrelieved brothel in all the adjoining back streets. They passed the famous Oyster Shop in the Haymarket (“Lobsters, Oysters, Pickled and Kippered Salmon”) and the no less celebrated Royal Albert Potato Can, run by the Khan, khan indeed of the baked-potato sellers of London, behind a great scarlet-and-brass stand that dominated and proclaimed the vista. They passed (and the bishop’s son took his lorgnette out of its shagreen case) the crowded daughters of folly, the great whores in their carriages, the lesser ones in their sidewalk droves… from demure little milky-faced millinery girls to brandy-cheeked viragoes. A torrent of color—of fashion, for here unimaginable things were allowed. Women dressed as Parisian bargees, in bowler and trousers, as sailors, as señoritas, as Sicilian peasant girls; as if the entire casts of the countless neighboring penny-gaffs had poured out into the street. Far duller the customers—the numerically equal male sex, who, stick in hand and “weed” in mouth, eyed the evening’s talent. And Charles, though he wished he had not drunk so much, and so had to see everything twice over, found it delicious, gay, animated, and above all, unFreemanish.

Terpsichore, I suspect, would hardly have bestowed her patronage on the audience of whom our three in some ten minutes formed part; for they were not alone. Some six or seven other young men, and a couple of old ones, one of whom Charles recognized as a pillar of the House of Lords, sat in the large salon, appointed in the best Parisian taste, and reached through a narrow and noisome alley off a street some little way from the top of the Haymarket. At one end of the chandeliered room was a small stage hidden by deep red curtains, on which were embroidered in gold two pairs of satyrs and nymphs. One showed himself eminently in a state to take possession of his shepherdess; and the other had already been received. In black letters on a gilt cartouche above the curtains was written Carmina Priapea XLIV:

The copulatory theme was repeated in various folio prints in gilt frames that hung between the curtained windows. Already a loose-haired girl in Camargo petticoats was serving the waiting gentlemen with Roederer’s champagne. In the background a much rouged but more seemingly dressed lady of some fifty years of age cast a quiet eye over her clientele. In spite of her very different profession she had very much the mind of Mrs. Endicott down in Exeter, albeit her assessments were made in guineas rather than shillings.

Such scenes as that which followed have probably changed less in the course of history than those of any other human activity; what was done before Charles that night was done in the same way before Heliogabalus—and no doubt before Agamemnon as well; and is done today in countless Soho dives. What particularly pleases me about the unchangingness of this ancient and time-honored form of entertainment is that it allows one to borrow from someone else’s imagination. I was nosing recently round the best kind of secondhand bookseller’s—a careless one. Set quietly under “Medicine,” between an Introduction to Hepatology and a Diseases of the Bronchial System, was the even duller title The History of the Human Heart. It is in fact the very far from dull history of a lively human penis. It was originally published in 1749, the same year as Cleland’s masterpiece in the genre, Fanny Hill. The author lacks his skill, but he will do.

The first House they entered was a noted Bagnio, where they met with a Covey of Town Partridges, which Camillo liked better than all he had ever drawn a Net over in the Country, and amongst them Miss M., the famous Posture Girl, whose Presence put our Company of Ramblers upon the Crochet of shewing their new Associate a Scene, of which he had never so much as dreamed before.

They were showed a large Room, Wine was brought in, the Drawer dismissed, and after a Bumper the Ladies were ordered to prepare. They immediately stripped stark naked, and mounted themselves on the middle of the Table. Camillo was greatly surprised at this Apparatus, and not less puzzled in guessing for what Purpose the Girls had posted themselves on that Eminence. They were clean limbed, fresh complectioned, and had Skins as white as the driven Snow, which was heightened by the jet-black Color of their Hair. They had very good Faces, and the natural Blush which glowed on their Cheeks rendered them in Camillo’s Mind, finished Beauties, and fit to rival Venus herself. From viewing their Faces, he bashfully cast his Eyes on the Altar of Love, which he had never had so fair a View of as this present Time…

The Parts of the celebrated Posture Girl had something about them which attracted his Attention more than any things he had either felt or seen. The Throne of Love was thickly covered with jet-black Hair, at least a quarter of a Yard long, which she artfully spread asunder, to display the Entrance into the Magic Grotto. The uncommon Figure of this bushy spot afforded a very odd sort of Amusement to Camillo, which was more heightened by the Rest of the Ceremony which these Wantons went through. They each filled a Glass of Wine, and laying themselves in an extended Posture placed their Glasses on the Mount of Venus, every Man in the Company drinking off the Bumper, as it stood on that tempting Protuberance, while the Wenches were not wanting in their lascivious Motions to heighten the Diversion. Then they went thro’ the several Postures and Tricks made use of to raise debilitated Lust when cloyed with natural Enjoyment, and afterwards obliged poor Camillo to shoot the Bridge, and pass under the warm Cataracts, which discomposed him more than if he had been overset in a Gravesend Wherry. However, tho’ it raised the Laugh of the whole Company, he bore this Frolick with a good deal of patience, as he was told it was necessary for all new Members to be thus initiated into the Mysteries of their Society. Camillo began now to be disgusted at the prodigious Impudence of the Women; he found in himself no more of that uneasy Emotion he felt at their first setting out, and was desirous of the Company’s dismissing them; but his Companions would not part with them, till they had gone through with the whole of their Exercise; the Nymphs, who raised a fresh Contribution on every new Discovery of their impudent Inventions, required no Entreaties to gratify the young Rakes, but proceeded, without the least Sense of Shame, to shew them how far Human Nature could debase itself.

Their last Exploit inflamed these Sons of Debauchery so far that they proposed, as a Conclusion of the Scene, that each Man should chuse his Posture, and go through what they had only seen imitated before. But this was a Step the Nymphs would not comply with, it being the Maxim of these Damsels, never to admit of the Embraces of the Men, for fear of spoiling their Trade. This very much surprised Camillo, who from their former Behavior, persuaded himself there could not be invented any Species of Wickedness with which they would not comply for the Sake of Money; and though before this Refusal, their abandoned Obscenity had quite stifled all thoughts of lying with them, yet now his Desires were as strong as if they had been modest Virgins, and he had seen nothing of their Wantonness; so that he became as earnest to oblige them to comply as any Man in the Company.