Some weeks elapsed between the publication of the shame of Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet and the completion of his downfall. There being at that time no provincial analogue of the Chiltern Hundreds, he was suffered, at least until the next plenary of the aldermen could be convened in order to seek his removal from office, to continue as the titular Mayor of our City, in which capacity he made a show of haunting his offices in the City Hall and being driven about by Mr Jagtar Singh in the Mayoral limousine, which put that habitually sanguine fellow sadly out of countenance. —
The Mayoral limousine, Hawksmoor Perroquet
During this period, the Mayor’s behaviour became increasingly erratic, presumably as a result of the renewal of his acquaintance with the equine anaesthetics, talcums of Medellin, and amphetamine-based substances which had blighted his youth. Mr Jagtar Singh found himself being summoned, at all hours of the day and night, to don his braid and convey Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet hither and thither, to addresses in Withywood and Knowle West and Hartcliffe and Southmead and diverse other Tophets and Vales of Hinnom, where he was compelled to park in his shiny charabanc outside craque houses and stews and shebeens and other places where persons of low repute were wont to congregate for whatever the fell business was which they had at hand. And there he must wait, for hours at a time, the engine idling, while Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet demeaned himself and his office. After ever so many hours, the Mayor would emerge, either weaving erratically or, marginally less often, pursued by an angry mob of hayseeds, and wrench open the door of the limousine and clamber inside onto the Mayoral cushion and command Mr Jagtar Singh to convey him to whatever desolation next took his fancy. —
Mr Jagtar Singh
One evening, Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet returned from his debauches to his home in Southville, and, being set down upon the pavement by Mr Jagtar Singh, made his way up to his apartment, and there found Miss Isolde Perroquet in the company of duns. —
Isolde Acridotheres
Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, who had taken a quantity of Munter’s Blinding Cider and was as flushed as an African Grey parrot ever can be, grunted, and muttered something snide under his breath about foundlings being foisted upon a fellow. —
Munter’s Blinding Cider
Following this exchange, Miss Isolde Perroquet packed up her belongings in a very respectable trousseau, which she then had sent post-haste to the branch in the tree in Dogging Wood, on which she and her Mama had first alighted on their arrival in Our City. (I rather suspect that she entertained some hope of thereby renewing her acquaintance with that swart gentleman Mr Ian Corby. However, alas! That swart gentleman Mr Ian Corby had at last removed himself from the purlieus of Dogging Wood, having taken up with a certain columbine in relation to the whiteness of whom his swartness stood in vivid contrast, which no doubt both parties considered to set themselves off to great advantage.) —
Dogging Wood
For his part, the Mayor summoned again the weary but ever complaisant Mr Jagtar Singh, and commanded that he be conveyed thence with a very few and very paltry accoutrements to … er … Squattocrat Towers in Stokes Croft. Upon his arrival at that edifice, and being set down once more upon the pavement, and having discharged Mr Jagtar Singh greatly to the relief of that sufferer of the peccadilloes of others, he staggered up to the adamantine front door of the seat of the House of Snatch, and smote thereon with his beak. Although the curtain covering the window wavered, and a pair of very yellow eyes appeared over a pair of very thin lips and subjected him to a very sardonic perusal, yet did no soul grant him the honour of an audience at the door. —
Lord Snatch, Squattocrat Towers
His arrival had not gone unnoticed, for there was shortly to be heard the onrush of feet clambering up stairs, followed by the flinging open of the door, disclosing the presence of St Just, which was to be expected, and also that of Mr Crass Cheseham, which was perhaps not to be expected, but who broke the ice with his customary elegance: —
Mr Crass Cheseham, St Just
“The people in here would have been busy,” drawled Lord Snatch making himself comfortable on the plank nailed across the toilet seat, and thinking fit to add, “they would have been ministering to their burnt wives and so forth, you know.” —
Lord Snatch
“You will find,” said Lord Snatch very drily, “the quality of my mercy to be rather strained, inasmuch as I hold you personally responsible for my excellent lady wife not being presently able to prostitute herself. Nonetheless,” he mused, “perhaps there are areas in which you may make yourself useful. You might assist Ganymede as a sort of sous chef with his duties just across the landing in the upstairs kitchen. Hopefully there will be no explosion this time. Or we might send you out with the Romanians. A beggar tends to do better, I always think, with than without a pooch or an ape or, God save us, a parrot.” —
Ganymede
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