His extraordinary suggestion is that the future PM inserted a private part of his anatomy into the animal's mouth.

Little dogs (his spaniel’s eyes encountered many) leaped and fawned about her, their sharp neat teeth clogging in the soft candy they chumbled from her gloved hand.

Really! he said, collapsing into lassitude. It's too frightfully hot for singing.

But in spite of Dow, and all other malicious scandalisms, Fletcher's star was evidently in the ascendant.