Solomon

“’Tis true, thy visdom, Solomon. That vornoon in the tent. Years ago. Years and years.”

…his parliament, and addressed with somewhat of a Caledonian burr the fool nearest him, who happened to be Solomon, this latter sapient having resumed his wonted place upon that bench of honourable members.

“’Tis our Mayor,” said Solomon, “hif that be what ye mean by zuch zircumlocutions.”

For these reasons it is small wonder that, upon a late afternoon approaching midsummer, the toper Solomon was to be espied in company with the harlequin Hieronymus sloping hangdog through Little Mogadishu Gate. Their passing was observed by a small knot of black-shrouded Somali womenfolk, who instinctively shielded their infants from those ne’er-do-wells and shrank from their presence. There was at that very moment a sudden froideur, and a biting…

…inter alia, Medusa of the writhing dreadlocks, and Solomon the toper and Hieronymus the harlequin, who were both drinking to the success of the skin grafts which they had undergone in the wake of the industrial accident in Little Mogadishu.

For their part, the aforementioned rogues - Solomon the wise, the clown Hieronymus, Medusa the Gorgon, and St Just the tiger (or catamite if you will) - did not deign to remark upon the fleeting passage by their comble of the mynah bird, wrapped up as they were in their latest intrigue, viz. the charivari which they thought they might get up.