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    A Packet of Dreams
    A Packet of Dreams
    A Packet of Dreams
    Ebook375 pages5 hours

    A Packet of Dreams

    By John Howard Reid

    ()

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    About this ebook

    27 short prose pieces, two novelettes and a one-act play provide a feast for all who love mysteries, romance, fantasy, humor and suspense. The novelettes are thrillers, set in Egypt. Two essays won awards for Best Humor, while another two are drawn from the author's own encounters as an apprentice writing contest judge. John Howard Reid himself is now Chief Judge for three of America's leading literary events. Stories include "Anyone for Play Ball?" which is centered on a small but aggressive baseball club in a rural area of California; "Counter-Clockwise", a humorous story, Highly Commended in no less than three writing contests; "Dead Man Walking", a thriller, set in modern-day Egypt; "Step-Ladder Nine", a cross-genre story/poem, Highly Commended in a national literary competition; "Gone West", a humorous story; "Scent of Lotus on a Windy Day", a tale of horror and suspense in Ancient Egypt, short-listed in three national writing contests; and a pair of Highly Commended humorous pieces, "Wharf Idler" and "Beachcombing: Your Questions Answered".

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Howard Reid
    Release dateMar 22, 2011
    ISBN9781458166951
    A Packet of Dreams
    Author

    John Howard Reid

    Author of over 100 full-length books, of which around 60 are currently in print, John Howard Reid is the award-winning, bestselling author of the Merryll Manning series of mystery novels, anthologies of original poetry and short stories, translations from Spanish and Ancient Greek, and especially books of film criticism and movie history. Currently chief judge for three of America's leading literary contests, Reid has also written the textbook, "Write Ways To Win Writing Contests".

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      Book preview

      A Packet of Dreams - John Howard Reid

      A PACKET OF DREAMS

      Short Stories by

      John Howard Reid

      ****

      Published by:

      John Howard Reid at Smashwords

      Copyright (c) 2011 by John Howard Reid

      ****

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      ****

      Copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid. All rights reserved.

      Enquiries: johnreid@mail.qango.com

      ****

      All characters in these stories are entirely fictitious.

      --

      Other Books by John Howard Reid

      Anyone for Love? (Poetry)

      Escape to Paradise and Other Poetic Fancies

      A Salute to Spanish Poetry (Translations)

      Rosalía de Castro Selected Poems (Translations)

      --

      In All His Glory (Historical Novel)

      Prophet, Priest and King (Historical Novel)

      --

      Mexican Autumn (Short Stories)

      Micaela Morris in Jo’s Heaven (Short Stories)

      --

      Merryll Manning: Trapped on Mystery Island

      Merryll Manning: The Health Farm Murders

      Merryll Manning: Beachfront "Holiday"

      --

      Note: All songs and poems in the various stories, including Felipe X. Chavez in Step-Ladder Nine, copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid.

      ***

      Index and Table of Contents

      Anyone for Play Ball?

      Bad Medicine

      Beachcombing: Your Questions Answered

      Below Cost

      Bethany

      Bunny Money

      Clean Sweep for Mazeppa

      Contest Blues

      Counter-Clockwise

      Dead Man Walking (Novelette)

      End of the Penny Section

      For Love or Honey

      Going Down

      Gone West

      Goodbye, Sweet Revenge

      Jewel of an Idea

      Mind Candy

      Mountain of Many Treasures

      My Friend, My Enemy (Novelette)

      Of Easy Yokes and Light Burdens

      Packet of Dreams

      Reclamation of Edwin Drood

      Scent of Lotus on a Windy Day

      Section Queue

      Settling Accounts

      Step-Ladder Nine

      Two Positives, One Negative (One-Act Play)

      Vince Viner’s Victory

      Wharf Idler

      What Price Entertainment?

      ***

      A Packet of Dreams

      Dreams for sale! Dreams for sale!

      The barker was a young girl. A very attractive girl, or I wouldn’t have bothered to stop. Leastways, her face was attractive. I didn’t think much of her uniform. The lessee could have done a whole lot better than a dowdy navy smock with silver buttons. A smock that did nothing for her figure. Such a shapeless balloon, there was no telling where her shoulders ended and her breasts began. But her face, with that smooth fair skin and those big gray eyes, had that vulnerable, please-love-me-to-death quality that I find irresistible.

      I didn’t waste time on pleasant good days. Get right down to it, is my motto. Some women appreciate that. Others like the slow, sexless, just-one-human-being-to-another approach. I don’t have time for that. I walked right up and leaned on the counter. I like you, I said. You’re super swell. But I don’t like your outfit. I bet you haven’t sold ten dollars in an hour.

      She smiled. A wan smile that trickled across her lips like a see-saw of sunlight on a shadowed pond.

      I’m Arthur Knight. I run the merry-go-round concessions, the fake jewelry stands and the hot chips. All mine! What’s your racket?

      She pointed to the dull little packets neatly rowed behind her. Dreams.

      Hell! What’s in the packets? If it’s fake jewelry, you’ve got a problem. At least your boss has. I’ve got the concession. Exclusive. And I don’t like competition. Even if you only sell a dozen packets a day, I still don’t like it.

      I don’t sell them, she answered, her voice so soft I had to lean forward to catch her words. Not in the way you mean, Arthur. I trade them.

      And how many have you traded to-day? I held up my right hand. Not more than five or six, I betcha.

      She shook her head. None.

      You’re in the wrong racket, girlie. Come and work for me. I can always use a girl like you. I winked. You get me?

      That wan see-saw flickered across her lips again. You couldn’t pay my wages, Mr Knight.

      Just ask me. Go on, just ask.

      Death.

      That was it! I turned around and walked right away from her. Crazy as a bed-bug. Not the full quid. Awful sad. Lovely girl too. She called out after me, but I didn’t hear what she said and I didn’t stop running until I reached my draughty little shack of an office back of Knight’s Genuine Discount Gems.

      My ten-per-cent partner poked his head through the curtain. Who’s after you this time, Art?

      Ever hear of a dream merchant on the midway?

      A what?

      You heard me: A dream merchant. A girl selling packets of dreams.

      And she lives in a big shoe with Old Mother Hubbard?

      Her pitch is near the Tumble Bugs, right opposite the Laughing Clowns. See what you can find out about her, Sly.

      You serious? Now?

      I’ll look after things while you’re gone.

      Go to it, boss. Nothing much doing here now anyway.All the paying customers are riding the Ghost Train or watching Jesse James bail up Cobb and Co. in the main arena.

      He was right. I sold only five genuine pearl necklaces in the whole hour he was gone.

      Name’s Bernice. Some kind of religious nut.

      I breathed a sigh of relief. A religious kook I could handle. A genuine crazy was something else again.

      She was just packing up. I knew you’d be back, she said. I was expecting you.

      I’ll take a dream.

      First, you’ve got to pay.

      Okay. You got a sale, I said.

      Today we’ve got a special sale. Buy two dreams, get one for free.

      Today and every day you’ve got a sale.

      Today is all that matters. You want to pay for Love and Ambition, get Magic World for free?

      Do I write something in blood?

      She handed me a card.

      I make a solemn promise to die for Love, to die for Ambition, I read.

      Now I’ll find your packet, she said.

      Aren’t they all the same? I asked. They all looked the same. Just miniature, black-creped, cardboard boxes the size of a Cuppa Soup. Rows and rows of them.

      She shook her head. We each have our number. After a couple of false starts, she selected a box and placed it on the counter.

      Where’s yours? I asked.

      How did you know I had one?

      Don’t we all have dreams? It was my turn to smile. Let’s see it.

      A dream is something private and personal, she answered. Ideas that flow from our inner hearts, inner thoughts, inner longings. Our dreams reflect the very fiber of our souls.

      Oh, yeah?

      You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe in the real person that lies underneath? Underneath the overlays of our so-called ‘education’ – the brain-washing we receive from our teachers, the media, our peers, even our priests.

      If what you say is right on, the happy police could easily hunt out and screw down all our criminals. Quiz suspects. Uncover potential crooks. Just third-degree our dreams.

      She nodded.

      Then why don’t they?

      Because not enough people believe in the power of dreams.

      Power? I asked. Or insight?

      Both.

      So how’s about you share your dreams with me?

      Again that wistful smile.

      You were about to show me your personal packet anyway.

      She hunted out her packet/box from under the counter.

      Looks the same as mine, I commented. How can you tell the diff?

      She handed me a large magnifying glass, Sherlock Holmes style. My eyes are used to the lettering, she said, pointing to a spot right near the bottom edge.

      Sure enough, with the aid of the glass, I could vaguely make out my name. Or was it just my imagination? Or hope?

      I handed her back the glass. Is that someone spying on us? I quickly pointed to the back of her stand.

      As she turned around, I swiftly switched boxes. I knew my own dreams. I wanted to know hers.

      She turned back, gave me a puzzled look.

      My mistake, I said, pocketing her dream.

      She frowned.

      Don’t bother to wrap it up. I tapped my pocket. I’ll take it unwrapped.

      As I made to move off, she leaned forward and laid her hand on my cheek. I swelled with pride. Another quick conquest! There was no stopping Arthur Knight.

      I think, she began. I think you’re making a mistake.

      I looked her full in the eyes. Drinking nectar from a gray-rimmed pool. Arthur Knight never makes mistakes, I told her. I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t you worry.

      She shook her head. You don’t know what you’re getting into, she warned softly.

      I patted my pocket. Dreams, of course, I answered. Beautiful dreams.

      She knew I’d switched boxes. I stood there, staring into her face until she smiled. A secret smile of assent.

      *

      Bernice was the star of her dream. I saw her sitting on a patch of grass, halfway down an otherwise barren hill. At least she’d exchanged her drab navy smock for an equally shapeless white robe that shone, glistened and blurred into the sunlight.

      Crouching over Bernice, a wizened little man idly fingered a slate of hieroglyphics.

      It was really the Master told you this? Really the Master! Bernice exclaimed.

      The old man misinterpreted her words. How many Masters are there, girlie? he snapped. Is the Master of land and sea, of heavens and earth, of body and soul, not one and the same Master? You’ve seen Him, heard Him — now goodbye!

      Bernice ignored him. I myself saw the Master, she agreed. But He was a long way off. His voice came to me in fits and starts as the wind carried it down the mountain. I thought He mentioned the fowls of the heaven – who are they? – and the kingdom that is within us. And that knowing something – what? – shall find the kingdom.

      I heard nothing about finding the kingdom, the old man grunted. "It was not finding it, I heard: If you don’t fast from the world, you’ll never find the kingdom. If every day is not the seventh day, you’ll never see the father. He pointed behind him. Just this desert dust and the sands of the endless sea."

      Bernice wasn’t interested in the not. "You quoted Him saying, Where there is one alone," she prompted.

      "Ah! When I drew near, I heard the Master say: Where there is one alone, I say I am with him. Lift up the stone and there you shall find Me. Chop the wood and I am there. But I heard nothing about finding the kingdom. Only not finding."

      *

      Your magic world. A hill in a desert? I asked.

      She smiled that flickering, self-sad smile. And I know yours.

      Now it was my time to smile. Confidently. Aggressively.I don’t have a magic world. Don’t need one.

      You were riding a motor scooter through the countryside. Not a bike, a motor scooter. You were idling along, through green valleys, down winding river-banks, and over mossy hills.

      I looked at her in surprise. That was a long time ago.

      It could be now, she said. Give everything away.Leave everything you have. Sell that town house you’re buying –

      It’s mortgaged! I cut in.

      And with the money left over, you could buy two Vespa scooters. One for me. And we’ll set out together. We’ll scour the countryside. We’ll look for the kingdom together – if it takes us the rest of our lives!

      I was strongly tempted. At that moment, Bernice seemed alive with an inner radiance that transformed her into the most beautiful, the most attractive girl I’d ever seen.

      But no! I’d worked too hard for Arthur Knight’s merry-go-rounds, hot chips and Genuine Discount Gems. I wasn’t about to sell out now, let alone give them away.

      I decided to let her down easy. Love to, sweetie. But you can’t buy motor scooters any more for love or money. And I wouldn’t trust myself on a motorbike. That’s no way to see the country. Do it proper, is what I say. Scooters or nothing. I like to just paddle along, as you said, feel the fresh air on my face. Smelling the clover and the corn, the sheep and the cows, whatever the breeze brings along. I like to eat Maccas under the stars and sleep beside a waterfall. I like to comb the grass out of my hair in the morning and kick loose pebbles into the creek. But no scooters, no dice. Too bad!

      She ignored me. Won’t you buy a packet of dreams? she cajoled two passers-by. Special to-day. Buy two packets, one packet free.

      *

      That night, I dreamt I saw Bernice again. She had found her Master. An ordinary looking man of average height, brown eyes, swarthy skin, unruly black hair, unkempt beard speckled with gray. Neither ugly nor handsome, neither humble nor proud, neither ruler nor slave, neither fastidious nor slovenly. Just an ordinary man of obviously moderate means and less than conspicuous charisma.

      The Master was addressing his followers. Bernice sat at his sandalled feet. His voice had an odd accent. It took me a few seconds to place it. Cockney! I stood in the midst of the world, He said. In this here flesh. I found all men heavy with drink, –yet not a one of them was thirsting. Not a one! I’m frightened, frightened for their souls, because they’re blind in their hearts. Blind!

      *

      Early next morning, I raced back to the midway. Near the Tumble Bugs, opposite the Laughing Clowns, I found just empty space. The Dream Merchant had pulled up her stakes and gone.

      But that’s not the crazy thing. The crazy thing is that I signed everything over to my partner, – lock, stock and barrel. I sold the town house and paid a pretty price for a reconditioned Vespa motor scooter. Then spent the next three years, scootering through every state, hunting through every country fair, looking for Bernice.

      I never found her. Not a whisper. Not a trace.

      I still dream of her though. Every night I see her at the feet of the Master. And every night I hear His words: If a man is alone, I will come to assist him. As he struggles against the weight of his burden, I will offer him a helping hand. If he refuses My aid, I walk on, leaving him to battle his loneliness himself. But if he accepts My friendship, I will follow him forever.

      The Reclamation of Edwin Drood

      Far worse than a book with a disturbing or unsatisfactory ending, is a novel with no ending at all. The Mystery of Edwin Drood was intended to intrigue readers for twelve months. Unfortunately, Dickens did not live to see the project through. The serial closed with the sixth number (and that was underwritten by two pages). What we have therefore amounts to slightly more than half of the planned novel.

      Slightly more than half, although the sixth and last number was two pages short? My mathematics are correct. Dickens did write an additional scene, entitled How Mr Sapsea Ceased To Be a Member of the Eight Club, As Told by Himself, which was to have been inserted in one of the later monthly numbers. This sketch was published by Dickens’s biographer, John Forster, who also informs us how Dickens planned the novel to finish, namely with the unmasking of Jasper by Datchery (Tartar in disguise) and the choirmaster’s subsequent conviction. The final chapter was to have been set in the prison where Jasper awaits execution.

      But let’s not pin Dickens down. Like all good authors, he may well have changed his mind and decided to go all out for comedy instead.

      After all, he did just that with Martin Chuzzlewit when sales were not progressing too well.

      So here is my new spoof of a conclusion, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, but nonetheless Dickensian in spirit and perhaps even very slightlyimproved.

      ***

      CHAPTER XLVI

      A GRITTIER STATE OF THINGS

      It’s no fun being buried alive, remarked Edwin, stepping into the lamplight.

      If Edwin Drood expected Mr Sapsea to be startled out of his wits by his seemingly spectral re-appearance, he was sorely disappointed. Neither ghosts nor ghosties inspired much in the way of fear in the mayor’s self-centered breast. Besides, all his natural instincts told him that Edwin was no visitor from a ghoulish underworld. Hadn’t he himself proclaimed loud and long to an admiring Cloisterham that Edwin Drood’s sudden disappearance was no mystery, but simply the case of a untried youth who’d changed his hastily-formed matrimonial mind? (In point of fact, to Edwin’s mind, he had survived incarceration and attempted suffocation simply because the mayor’s ostensible friend, Jasper, had proved such a poor hand at smothering and chalk throwing. Never trust an opium addict).

      Although Mr Sapsea afforded him no such invitation, the apparition sat himself down by the mayor’s fireplace. Fantastically pieced together in scorched, muddy clothing, and shaking spasmodically from head to foot, Edwin Drood helped his trembling frame to a large slice of Sapsea’s toast.

      A watchful pause.

      Butter? asked Edwin, growing impatient. I do like a nice piece of butter with my bread.

      Sapsea pointed towards the scullery. Why not join me in supper? he enquired. Mutton chops, pork sausages, baked potatoes, marrow bones, rum toddies, a pot of ale?

      Mr Sapsea, began Edwin, growing impatient, you can deny me butter, you can deny me justice, but you can’t deny you are a Blockhead.

      If I was to deny it, dear boy, suggested the mayor, what would it avail me?

      Ah, Mr Sapsea! exclaimed the ex-incarcerated young man. I am wrong. Wronged and wrong. Disguise from you is impossible. You know already that I come from somewhere and am going somewhere else.

      Where have I heard those words before? observed Sapsea, nodding his head in a soothing way in a vain endeavor to put the specter at his ease. You are going away. There is no harm in going away.

      Oh, Mr Sapsea! cried the specter in a very well-behaved tone. Bless you for those words! And then, as if ashamed at having given way to his feelings, he looked down again at his slice of toast in an abstracted manner. I’m still waiting for the butter, he added by way of afterthought.

      But the mayor was not to be diverted. The longer he kept Drood sitting and eating, the more likely it was that one of his constituents, Durdles or Jasper himself, might stumble into the scene. Yes, he could hear the choirmaster even now, singing in the distance as he approached the Sapsea Monument:

      --

      Jimmy’s lost his toothbrush,

      His toothbrush, his toothbrush,

      Jimmy’s teeth will rot-a-totty

      Right out of his head.

      --

      Jimmy’s lost his toothbrush,

      His toothbrush, his toothbrush,

      A boy who’s lost his toothbrush.

      May as well be dead!

      --

      Dear old Jasper has been faring poorly of late, began Sapsea solemnly, in an effort to draw Drood’s attention away from the choirmaster’s chorusing. Whatever personal qualifications may be brought to bear, sometimes I think he is far too fond of his pipe. Hark, I pray you to my unqualified word of wisdom: Moderation. M=O=D=E=R=A=S=H=U=N. Moderation in all things, I always say. Not that it matters.

      A knock at the door.

      Come in, dear fellow. Come in!

      Jasper enters.

      You know your nephew, Mr Drood, I think. Mr Sapsea waved airily towards the apparition. Mr Jasper, Mr Drood. Mr Drood, Mr Jasper.

      "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with D," affably remarked Jasper, nimbly throwing his hat at a peg. (It missed and fell to the floor).

      Oh, goody-goody! Charades! cried Edwin, starting up and quite forgetting his unbuttered toast. "Something beginning with D? What the dickens can it be?"

      What does it matter, dear boy, what does it matter?

      Oh, Mr Sapsea, answered Edwin, looking down at his feet, not daring to look the mayor in the eye, your cognizance is so acute, your glance into the souls of your fellow men so penetrating, that if I was hardy enough to enter into conversation with you, you would have me, sir, at a distinct disadvantage.

      "But you are conversing, dear boy!"

      Am I indeed addressing a mere mayor? Are you not actually someone high in Holy Church?

      Ah-ha! Now I know you, sirrah! exclaimed the mayor, jumping up. Those words! That downcast air! This, Mr Jasper, is the very youth who accosted me in the street that night—that same ill-omened night many nascent moons ago—when I ceased to be a member of the Eight Club! That night of nights! It has haunted my days, seared my dreams like a hot poker!

      Haunted? questioned the choirmaster. Like the ghost of Christmas Past perhaps?

      You should remember my misfortune well, Mr Jasper. It happened exactly forty-nine nights ago to this very day.

      As far as I’m aware, Mr Sapsea, I’ve not heard tell of your misfortunes on that particular fated night.

      Nor I! added an indignant Durdles at the door. Nor I! he repeated for emphasis.

      So join the club, invited the mayor, pointing to an empty chair.

      ***

      CHAPTER XLVII

      ALL PATHS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

      Where am I? asked Edwin in a weak voice.

      Cloisterham cathedral, was the answer.

      Who brought me here?

      Mayor Sapsea, Mr Jasper and Durdles.

      Why do I feel so weak?

      You put up a fight. Durdles was forced to knock you to the ground. You hit your head against the table. A fortunate accident it seems. The blow has hammered some sense into your befuddled brains.

      Who are you?

      Septimus.

      Septimus?

      The good Minor Canon permitted Edwin to examine his rosy and contented face.

      You are Septimus Crisparkle, deduced Edwin.

      The Minor Canon nodded in complete agreement.

      What am I doing here in the cathedral?

      Sleeping, to be exact. Closeted in my own bed. A good place where one can speak without interruption, as I now wish to do, answered the Canon. In short, in church.

      Why?

      Because you are ill. Because you are out of sorts. Because you have traipsed the town under assorted inane pseudonyms and in childishly obvious disguises. And forasmuch as you have allowed yourself to engender a noxious prejudice against your uncle, Mr Jasper.

      I am in great perplexity, sir. Never! I entertain the greatest respect, indeed affection, for my uncle. He is the finest, the most generous, the most avuncular uncle in the whole world.

      Yet you accuse him of throwing you into a chalk pit!

      Never! I tripped and fell, all by myself. I remember now: It was my generous Uncle Jasper who helped me out of the pit. It was my affable uncle told me Mayor Sapsea had inadvertently engineered my downfall. The jackass mayor had so plied me with strong drink, quite oblivious to my well-known fear of depths. Thus was I destined to trip and fall into the chalk pit, whilst homeward bound from The Jolly Jester, singing!

      What were you singing? One of your uncle’s songs?

      "No, unfortunately. As it happens, one that Jackass Sapsea inadvertently taught me. His voice excels in volume. All that it lacks is harmony. I was forced to listen to him reprising the words repeatedly. How did they go?

      --

      The back is the front,

      The front is the back,

      Never give tuppence

      When a penn’orth will hack.

      --

      Who has a farthing

      Or a ha’penny to spare?

      Give it over to me

      And you’ll never go bare!"

      --

      No wonder the church collection plate is considerably down of late.

      Blame it all on fruitless Sapsea! exclaimed Edwin.

      Mayor Sapsea has been denounced.

      Never! Not Mayor Sapsea! Not the artful auctioneer. Not he who fancies himself Dean without a collar!

      You have denounced him.

      Me?

      That is why we have isolated you from all your friends and acquaintances.

      But I know nothing! protested Edwin. A host who plies his guests with rum toddies is a hero in most eyes.

      That is why we have quarantined you from all your friends and acquaintances in Cloisterham, repeated the Minor Canon. When Mr Sapsea is arraigned for fraud and extortion, we will produce true witnesses: Your uncle, Mr Jasper; your lawyer, Mr Grewgious; your private detective, Mr Tartar (alias Dick Datchery); your stonemason, Durdles; and above all, your fiancée, Miss Rosa.

      On hearing their names called off by the Minor Canon, Jasper, Grewgious, Tartar, Durdles and Rosa creep softly to Edwin’s bedside.

      Durdles! exclaims Edwin, clasping the mason’s dusty hand. How can I ever repay you for bringing me to my senses?

      Think naught of it!

      I shall… And Rosa, dear Rosa, my Bud of Summer, wilt thou be mine?

      I shall… If Reverend Septimus shall announce the bans.

      He shall.

      And if Mr Tartar shall give me away.

      Tartar! Why Tartar?

      Mr Datchery then?

      Tartar dons his Datchery disguise. The copious capacity of Datchery’s gray-haired wig swells Tartar’s head to such an inordinate size he resembles a large baboon with the dropsy.

      Edwin eyes him critically up and down. No, he is not terribly convincing. Ta-ta, Datchery. I think we shall ask Tartar after all.

      Tartar doffs his Datchery disguise.

      On second thought…

      *

      So Drood marries his Bud, Crisparkle is elevated to Dean, Durdles receives a year’s supply of empty bottles wherewith to hold his lunch; while Jasper decides to leave Cloisterham for London where he takes up a position as pianist in his favorite opium den. Presently, after Kimber, the caperer, is elected mayor of the cathedral city, Jasper is joined as accompanist by Ex-Mayor Sapsea, who has been forced to depart Cloisterham under a cloud. No longer can he dress at the Dean, and must muffle his aspirations in more humble cloth.

      Thus we leave these two former pillars of the Church, literally singing for their supper with none-too-popular ditties of their own composition.

      From Mr Jasper:

      --

      Squeeze your finger

      In the wringer;

      Squeeze it dry,

      Bye-and-bye.

      --

      Squeeze your finger

      In the mangle;

      Squeeze it tight,

      Do it right!

      --

      And from Mr Sapsea, that famous author of the eye-catching Sapsea Monument which lords it over Cloisterham churchyard to this very day:

      --

      Stranger, let us surmise,

      Let us ask you true:

      Canst thou chant it higher?

      Canst thou sing it blue?

      --

      Oh, canst thou do likewise?

      Canst thou do the same?

      If not, PAUSE, oh stranger!

      And with thy blush, RETIRE!

      --

      Bethany

      I hate counting money. Sing a song of sixpence? Not me. But

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