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humorous answer; Father framed it and hung it on the wall of his clinic. Thereafter Father wrote to Mr. Clemens as each new book by “Mark Twain” appeared. As a direct result, young Maureen read all of Mr. Clemens’s published works, curled up in a corner of her father’s clinic. These were not books that Mother read; she considered them vulgar and destructive of good morals. By her values Mother was correct; Mr. Clemens was clearly subversive by the standards of all “right thinking” people.
    I am forced to assume that Mother could spot an immoral book by its odor, as she never, never actually read anything by Mr. Clemens.
    So those books stayed in the clinic and I devoured them there, along with other books never seen in the parlor—not just medical books, but such outright subversion as the lectures of Colonel Robert Ingersoll and (best of all) the essays of Thomas Henry Huxley.
    I’ll never forget the afternoon I read Professor Huxley’s essay on “The Gadarene Swine.” “Father,” I said in deep excitement, “they’ve lied to us all along!”
    “Probably,” he agreed. “What are you reading?”
    I told him. “Well, you’ve read enough of it for today; Professor Huxley is strong medicine. Let’s talk for a while. How are you doing with the Ten Commandments? Got your final version?”
    “Maybe,” I answered.
    “How many are there now?”
    “Sixteen, I think.”
    “Too many.”
    “If you would just let me chuck the first five—”
    “Not while you’re under my roof and eating at my table. You see me attending church and singing hymns, do you not? I don’t even sleep during the sermon. Maureen, rubbing blue mud in your belly button is an indispensable survival skill…everywhere, anywhen. Let’s hear your latest version of the first five.”
    “Father, you are a horrid man and you will come to a bad end.”
    “Not as long as I can keep dodging them. Quit stalling.”
    “Yes, sir. First Commandment: Thou shalt pay public homage to the god favored by the majority without giggling or even smiling behind your hand.”
    “Go on.”
    “Thou shalt not make any graven image of a sort that could annoy the powers that be, especially Mrs. Grundy—and, exempli gratia , this is why your anatomy book doesn’t show the clitoris. Mrs. Grundy wouldn’t like it because she doesn’t have one.”
    “Or possibly has one the size of a banana,” my father answered, “but doesn’t want anyone to find out. Censorship is never logical but, like cancer, it is dangerous to ignore it when it shows up. Darling daughter, the purpose of the second commandment is simply to reinforce the first. A ‘graven image’ is any idol that could rival the official god; it has nothing to do with sculpture or etchings. Go on.”
    “Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in vain…which means don’t swear, not even Jiminy or Golly or darn, or use any of those four-letter words, or anything that Mother might consider vulgar. Father, there is something here that doesn’t make sense. Why is ‘vagina’ a good word while ‘cunt’ is a bad word? Riddle me that.”
    “Both are bad words out of your mouth, youngster, unless you are talking to me…in which case you will use the medical Latin out of respect for my vocation and my gray hair. You are permitted to say the Anglo-Saxon synonym under your breath if it pleasures you.”
    “Somehow it does, and I haven’t been able to analyze why. Number four—”
    “Just a moment. Add to number three: Thou shalt not split infinitives, or dangle participles. Thou shalt shun solecisms. Thou shalt honor the noble English language, speech of Shakespeare, Milton, and Poe, and it will serve thee all the days of thy life. In particular, Maureen, if I ever again hear you say ‘different than’—I will beat you about the head and shoulders with an unbated ablative absolute.”
    “Father, that was an accident! I meant to—”
    “Excuses. Let’s hear number