My Uncle Oswald

'She said you were absolutely and positively the greatest. She said that from now on she wants all her men to be like you.'

'She said that? Did she actually say that, Cornelius?'

'Word for word.'

A. R. Woresley beamed.

'She said you make all other men look like eunuchs,' I said, ramming it home.

A. R. Woresley's whole face began to glow with pleasure. 'You're not pulling my leg, are you, Cornelius?'

'Ask her yourself when you see her.'

'Well, well, well,' he said, beaming away and preening his horrible moustache lightly with the back of his fingers. 'Well, well, well,' he said again. 'And may I ask what her name is, this remarkable young lady?'

'Yasmin Howcomely. She's half Persian.'

'How interesting.'

'You must have been terrific,' I said.

'I have my moments, Cornelius,' he said. 'Ah yes indeed, I certainly have my moments.' He seemed to have forgotten about the Blister Beetle. He wanted all the credit himself now and I let him have it.

'She can't wait to meet you again.'

'Splendid,' he said, rubbing his hands. 'And she's going to be a part of our little organization, you say?'

'Absolutely. You'll be seeing a lot of her from now on.'

'Good,' he said. 'Goody good.'

And thus A. R. Woresley joined the firm. It was as easy as that. What's more, he was a man of his word.

He agreed to withhold publication of his discovery.

He agreed to assist Yasmin and me in every possible way.

He agreed to construct for us a portable container for liquid nitrogen which we could take with us on our travels.

He agreed to instruct me in the exact procedure for diluting the collected semen and measuring it out into straws for freezing.

Yasmin and I would be the travellers and the collectors.

A. R. Woresley would remain at his post in Cambridge but would establish at the same time in a convenient and secret place a large central freezer, the Semen's Home.

From time to time, the travellers, Yasmin and I, would return with our spoils and transfer them from the portable suitcase freezer to the Semen's Home.

I would provide ample funds for everything. I would pay all travelling expenses, hotels, etc. while Yasmin and I were on the road. I would give Yasmin a generous dress allowance so that she might buy herself a superb wardrobe.

It was all straightforward and simple.

I resigned from the University and so did Yasmin.

I found and bought a house not far from where A. R. Woresley lived. It was a plain red brick affair with four bedrooms and two fairly large living-rooms. Some retired Empire-builder in years gone by had christened it, of all things, 'Dunroamin'. 'Dunroamin' would be the headquarters of the Home. It would be where Yasmin and I lived during the preparatory period, and it would also be a secret laboratory for A. R. Woresley. I spent a lot of money equipping that lab with apparatus for making liquid nitrogen, with mixers, microscopes and everything else we needed. I furnished the house. Yasmin and I moved in. But from now on, ours was a business relationship only.

Within a month, A. R. Woresley had constructed our portable liquid nitrogen container. It had double vacuum walls of aluminium and all manner of neat little trays and other contraptions to hold the tiny straws of sperm. It was the size of a large suitcase, and what's more it looked like a suitcase because the outside was sheathed in leather.

A second, smaller, travelling case contained compartments for ice, a hand-mixer and bottles for carrying glycerol, egg-yolk and skimmed milk. Also a microscope for testing the potency of newly collected sperm in the field. Everything was got ready with meticulous care.