Tee-hee

Chapter 1

The Details such as I will now endeavor to set down are such that the retelling of them will only serve to elucidate the facts of the situation such as are those that this yarn seeks to shed light upon, inasmuch as those facts are sought to be made clear by him who sets them down, in this case, I, who wishes this to be the eventuality.

Hunchen Pritchett sat on the porch of his crumbling mansion by the sea in his great granite rocking chair, carving a whale into some smaller sea mammal.

"Good sir," said I.

"DEVIL!" shouted the old man. "Your foul countenance singes my white head! You bring lies by the duffel bag, and nothing good can come of your visit here, Devil!"

Good folk strolling past the Manor Pritchett were eyeing me suspiciously.

"Let's keep the 'devil' shouting down to that which is only very necessary, if I am not being too forward," I whispered.

"Devil! Devil! Big Fat devil! Huge red, sharp-tailed, pitchfork using devil!" he taunted.

"Good sir! Ple--"

"Old scratch, the enemy, author of all lies!" He continuted.

"I entreat yo--"

"Cloven hoof, tossed-from-heaven, horn headed--"

"All right, that's it" I said stripping off my waistcoat and preparing to give him great quantities of what for.

Years of being old and grizzled had toughened him, and it was not as easy to subdue him as I might have liked. I was forced to begin hitting him with antique elbow chairs, which I had dashed inside and gathered from his sitting room for just that purpose. But he was no stranger to being hit with antique elbow chairs and was able to rally, pulling an intricately carved oaken buffet from behind his back, hitting me directly upon my head and driving me through the weathered wood of his porch like a nail, until I was stuck fast. Then he began tapping me, checking my progress, and tapping me again, "setting" me in the porch as a master carpenter might do a peg.

"Prithee sir, ouch. Please stop that," I begged of him.

"Just"-tap-"let me"-tap-"get you"-tap-"just right"-tap. "There now! Isn't that better?" he asked.

"No! Sir, as I said before, ouch! Dis-un-enpulleth me from stuckitude at once," I commanded. He yanked on me with a comically large pry bar that he apparently kept for such occasions until I was released.

"Good sir" I began yet again, "I have come on a matter of urgent business concerning Manor Pritchett."

"Be you the lawyerman? One they call Pillington Chillingshead?"

"Tis me, and none other than me be he."

"Well, why did you withold this information like it were a great big grape?" he asked warmly, though "bitterly would probably be closer to the truth, and if I added "and with vile hatred" I would not be overstating it.

"Would it be too much trouble to sit with you in your house away from this sea storm"-there was a great storm threatening to blow us away-"or were manners repealed by President Millard Fillmore and I somehow missed the headline?" I said and looked at him with a sarcastic "Well old man?" look, my hands out to my sides, palms up, shoulders shrugged.

"Do come in, Master Chillingshead," he offered expansively, though "resentfully" probably scores more accurate a hit and if "and as though he would rather die than ask me in" were following along behind it, I think I still would come up short in describing his rancorous displeasure with me.

I passed over the threashold of Manor Pritchett and into the drawing room, where Pritchett bade me sit on an overstuffed tiger.

"Can I get you a watermelon shandygaff" He asked sarcastically giving a stiff little bow. "Or woudl you like to smooch my gray, pimply backside?"

"What th--?!"

"Father!" Came a sharp cry from the baulstrades. "Stop inviting our guests to osculate your unkinder half, at once!" And the heavenly young woman descended slowly, floating down the stairs as if on wings of cloud. Such were, I would later learn, the sophisticated hydraulics of the Liftmaster 3000 installed several yars before for the old man.

"Father, will you have Encomium bring our guest a refreshing glass of elm juice?" She commanded, her voice soft, but clearly signaling that it would be entirely her pleasure to dish him out a broom-handle beating if he disobeyed. She was lovely.

Hunchen Pritchett shuffled off to the kitchen, making noises like Poopdeck Pappy as he went.

"I'se don't see wise I'se gots to get the whelp a glass of..." I heard him say before rounding the corner.

"Dear sir or madam-" she began.

"Sir covers it quite nicely, and I thank you," I interupted.

"I do beg your forgiveness for my father's shocking ugliness and his regrettable behavior as well," she said tenderly. "He has not been the same since the unfortunate event of his birth."

"Well who is? Think nothing of it, I beg you."

I stood up to receive her offered hand and was able to examine her face. It was breathtaking, and indeed, a breath I took and thereby avoided passing out, which admittedly I might have done anyway.

"My name is Pillington Chillingshead." I offered. "Inquiries were made with my office conerning the Pritchett landholdings in England. I came to get the family documents in order." She looked at me unblinkingly. The clock ticked. We stood this way for a quater of an hour.

"So, I guess I would need those," I said. Tick Tick Tick. Another quarter hour.

"Just the family documents, and I would be out of your hair." I said.

"And what would those look like?" She said, screwing up her face with the efoort of her inquiry.

"Their mien and bearing would suggest to the soul who happened to take in their appearance that they were composed of paper." Then added, "About this big" holding my hands the appropriate distance apart. Tick Tick Tick.

One half hour ticked away.

"Very Skinny in this direction," I offered, trying to suggest how thin paper can often be, without meaning to insult her obvious intelligence.

"Do they have legs?" she asked.

"Madame, it would indeed surprise me greatly if the family documents had any such appendages." Tick Tick Tick. "No legs. Nope." Tick.

"What do they sound like?" She asked earnestly.

" Well now, that is not altogether effortless to answer. They emit no sound unless some action is being performed upon them-"

"Are they in a box?" she asked.

"Yes! Yes, often the family documents are put in a box of some sort! Good. Good, very good."

The excitement of the moment died.

Tick Tick.

"Please know how happy it would make me to retrieve that box for you," I offered.

"I will go and bring it back to you." she said, and floated away.

It would be fair to say that at that moment, I felt as though I was connected to Desadora Pritchett by a golden cord of heavenly love that only death or horrible disfigurement could sever.

The End.

Tee-hee

joannadandy

FMZ

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