Once upon a time in soot-stained London, in that especial neighbourhood, July clouds cast a majestic pavilion in balmy heaven as high summer steeps the burnished cobblestones and scuffed marble steps.  The crepuscular sun (that bleary orb of brilliance) peaks through the misty veil even as Glasnevin settles round and moulders the vestment-clad body of dear Father Hopkins, dead now like his ‘dead letters sent.’  His communal grave had been freshly turned, spaded in Dublin to the anguish of his friends and family to whom ‘he seemed a stranger.’

Unexpectedly caught out, his creased unlined pockets are filled with shiny shillings beyond his slender earnings, Charles the lithesome telegraph lad sprouts a conscience tender and new.  Beneath the harsh gaze of the law, that rattan rod of righteousness, he haltingly reveals to Constable Luke the passionate presence of the furtive nobles and their brash boys of sweet assignation.  The besmirching reproaches commence with a whirlwind of vigorous evasion and cautious zealousness. The high-terraced gingerbread house of clandestine Uranian love comes crumbling down with the wordless absolution granted to the young, puissant and comely January prince of the Victorian realm.