Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced--if not actually defrocked--priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep--all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion--and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony.