...the book was lost, not unlike his virginity, during a moment of youthful
indiscretion. In the first place, he'd been forced to order the book from some
place Other, possibly Wales, although he was never very certain which
Wales had provided the book. But, remarkably, after a four year absence there
was another copy of the book on the topmost shelf of a top-drawer secondhand
book shop which had of course always been there, but he'd never looked - it
would appear, up there. It was not the precise printing of his former
copy, of course, but one's virginity is never found in exactly the same
condition. There's occasionally marginalia scrawled all over the virginity in
someone else's handwriting (one should hope) and under certain
circumstances there may be water damage.