Mince

…to his balding dome, and equally on account of his penchant for the exhibition of his armpits, was Mince. Mince was tall and, although he had evidently been athletic in his youth, was well into his seventh decade now, and was beginning to stoop. An instagram poet of unsurpassedly shameful, greasy, skin-crawling sentimentality and itenite wretchedness, he had for some years enjoyed a residency at the Ghastly Hipster Opposite Turbo…

…The alert reader will have deduced that this benefice also extended to Mince, from earlier disclosures relating how his handsyness was indulged to the extent that he had some time previously been granted the sinecure of Octopus in Residence. Much as he enjoyed the liberalities of his sinecure and the freedom it granted him as a handsy person to fondle the younger and more pliant sort of Tarquin and Henrietta,…

…down the street, he came up alongside the first of the posters glued to the wall earlier by Mince. It was vey dark by now, and Mr Tad Curmudgeonly was relieved to discover that the lettering was too indistinct to make out the scandal. Anticipating that he would have his work cut out if he hoped to remove all the posters by morning, he straightaway applied himself to the task,…

…A dissenting voice from this tendency was that of Mince who, over the days following his bill-posting exploits, had begun to fancy himself as somewhat of a player in that segment of the Great Game pertaining to our city, and whose self-regard in this respect had received a boost in the form of the surprisingly generous remuneration bestowed upon him by Mr Tad Curmudgeonly when he had called in by…