In taking his leave of his reconciled wife and child, Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet did not immediately betake himself to his lodgings, as ordinarily he might have been expected to. Instead, he went by various secret byways to Westbury-on-Trym, where was situated another of his own conversions, that is to say another boutique hotel, really a converted rectory, also boasting an aviary annex. At this establishment, he paid his courtesies to yet another lady of the avian persuasion, this being a dove, and a most demure and reticent dove at that, who went by the name of Miss Bianca Columbina. —
Westbury-on-Trym, Bianca Columbina, Hawksmoor Perroquet
In order to explain the association between Miss Bianca Columbina and Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, it will be necessary for me to allude to a trip to St Peter Port in Guernsey, undertaken a year or two previously by the Mayor. I am of the opinion that the Mayor made this trip at the behest of Sir Hearty Luncheon, inasmuch as his purpose in going there seems to have involved the resolution of certain matters relating to corporate taxation. For her part, Miss Bianca Columbina was no more a native of St Peter Port than was Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet. History, or at any rate Rumour painted full of tongues, records her as having been hatched in a dovecote on the bankrupt estate of some shiftless and frankly rather disgusting bohemians in Stroud, and borne thence as a hatchling inside that same dovecote, having been rescued by an insolvency and taxation practitioner - a gentleman by the name of Sir Ezra Tertiary-Syphilis who for excellent reasons had chosen to live offshore. —
Stroud, St Peter Port, Bianca Columbina, Sir Hearty Luncheon, Sir Ezra Tertiary-Syphilis
However, all that is by-the-by and the details need not concern us, for there the Mayor went, and there met Miss Bianca Columbina. What does concern us are the details of their meeting. For, while in that place, Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet succumbed to the ravages of an intestinal parasite. His misfortune was greatly to the embarrassment of Sir Ezra Tertiary-Syphilis, whose guest he was as the bearer of letters of introduction from Sir Hearty Luncheon. Salvation came in the form of Miss Bianca Columbina, who was blessed with a gentle nature sympathetic to the indispositions of her fellow avians, and undertook the nursing of the Tertiary-Syphilitic guest while that invalid was under Sir Ezra’s roof, or at least in a borrowed chamber of his dovecote. Thus perched Miss Bianca Columbina by the Mayor’s nestside, and cared for him. I cannot say that she had about her any of the medical expertise of a veterinarian, withal she cooed a lot, and gradually His Worshipfulness surmounted his affliction. In short, there grew up a curious kind of understanding between these two, whereby the Mayor, considering reasonably enough that his lawful wife and child were lost to him for all time, formed an attachment to Miss Bianca Columbina, which that very demure personage very demurely reciprocated. Very soon, troths were plighted, and Miss Bianca Colombina found herself persuaded, by the solemn undertakings offered by Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, to do rudeness with him. Moreover, the matters which had brought Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet to that island having been concluded - to the satisfaction, presumably, of a certain volcanic potentate in Anchor Road - Miss Bianca Columbina after a short but decent interval had followed him back to Bristol, very much under the impression that the connection between them was shortly to be made respectable in the eyes of the world. —
Bristol, City Hall
All night long, he sat before his copies of the Monchild-Rothsanto plans, but found himself quite unable to give them any of his attention, being utterly overwhelmed by his matrimonial quandary. All night long, he turned the matter over in his mind. He had promised to marry his lovey-dovey, but his wife was still living. All night long, he wracked his brains. —
Monchild-Rothsanto plans
As he had expected, that mustard-keen crow Mr Ian Corby was early at his desk. Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, momentarily paused before rapping the door with his beak, and overheard that familiar brogue cawing something about ingredients and muttigeetin’ hazurrrds, then did knock and most judiciously exercised his Mayoral prerogative of not waiting to be invited in. —
Muttigeetin’ hazurrrds, Ian Corby
This site would like to use cookies to count visits and measure advertising. Nothing is set unless you accept.
