After my ordeal of the previous day, a long hot soak was a necessity
and the more essences and oils I could introduce into my bath water
the quicker my recovery would be, at least that was my way of
thinking at the time. I've always been fond of, but not addicted to,
things in bottles and fortunately there were to hand, rather
unexpectedly I must confess, a soldierly line of Huile d'essence pour
le bain, Roger et Gallet, the full range. I emptied a bottle of bamboo
bath essence around my feet and another of bois d'orange over my
shoulders, as a voice that seemed to come from every part of the
room, but which I assumed to be a directive associated with my new
condition, announced: "Do not shampoo the Mark VI!" a stipulation
which I did not ignore, but which at the same time I did nothing to
avoid so that half inadvertently, half rebelliously (after all, those
engineers were supposed to be my employees and there was nothing
in the contract about identity insertion at the level I appeared to be Ð
this was a wholly new meaning to embedded!) I soon found myself
raising a surprisingly full lather generated from a scarcely used bottle
of Amande Persane, and by manipulating the flow of hot water - the
battery of taps was conveniently placed midway along the tub and
equipped with a submersible remote control by which I was not only
able to raise and lower the temperature of the overhead shower, -
though a very slight overtweak to the left and a lethal dragon's huff of
steam all but tore the Mark VI from my head (would that it had given
what I have had to go through since!), - but to alter its directional
trajectory as I wished - by means of this ingenious device, which
functioned as efficiently with the lower batterie de bain as with the
upper tournesol, or should I say tournereigne, shower fixture, I was
able to maintain an even temperature and might well have remained
in unctuous steep indefinitely had not the door burst open and the
room filled up with hounds. Not the hallmark corgies, but an exotic
Cruftian selection from a mere wisp of a chihuahua, whose piercing
shrieks were its only safeguard against trampling, to sleek moose
hounds as large as bears with appetites to match. "Radigonde!" I
heard myself saying, "Theophraste! Nourlu!" wondering at my
familiarity with these hitherto unseen canines, "you'll be sick if you
drink the bathwater, it must be at least 20% bath essence, if not
more, and you know very well that dogs with diarrhoea are not
allowed indoors." But I was powerless to prevent the self-purging
