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I had noticed this display almost the instant I walked in. But, I tried not to stare and the Captain and others kept me so busy at first that I really did not have time to sneak glances at the incredible exposure. But, look - when a lady comes up and puts her arms around you and insists on kissing you, it is difficult not to notice that she isn't wearing enough to ward off pneumonia. Or other chest complaints.
But I kept a tight rein on myself despite increasing dizziness and numbness.
Even bare skin did not startle me as much as bare words - language I had never heard in public in my life and extremely seldom even in private among men only. 'Men', I said, as gentlemen don't talk that way even with no ladies' present - in the world I knew.
The most* shocking thing that ever happened to me in my boyhood was one day crossing the town square, noticing a crowd on the penance side of the courthouse, joining it to see who was catching it and why... and finding my Scoutmaster in the stocks. I almost fainted.
His offence was profane language, so the sign on his chest told us. The accuser was his own wife; he did not dispute it and had thrown himself on the mercy of the court - the judge was Deacon Brumby, who didn't know the word.
Mr Kirk, my Scoutmaster, left town two weeks later and nobody ever saw him again - being exposed, in the stocks was likely to have that effect on a man
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