The doom which befell Sir Hearty Luncheon was adjudged by the coroner - Mr Justice Silent, sitting for the purpose of this adjudication in Flax Bourton - to have been accidental. By this means, the people who loved Sir Hearty Luncheon were spared the inconvenience of shriving his corse at the crossroads, which no doubt considerably eased their burden. —
Flax Bourton
Mr Ian Corby was another who felt the lifting of a weight. For, like Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet before him, he had tended to find disquieting the respirations down his neck of Sir Hearty Luncheon while that panjandrum walked among us yet, and was very thankful not to be discommoded by any residual emanation on the part of Luncheon manes. For in truth, the Scotch corvid was a lively and sanguine fellow, who dipped his finger into many pies and span a lot of plates. And with a career of this sort are concomitant many stresses. And so it was very much a relief to Mr Ian Corby not to be any longer encumbered with the attentions of Sir Hearty Luncheon. While it is true that the responsibility for the oversight previously undertaken by the Avon & Somerset Crassus passed, nominally at least, to Lord Handjob, that absent proconsul maintained the lightest touch upon the tiller, being as ever entirely given over to thoroughbreds, showgirls, boxers, starlets, roulette, fleshpots, and everything else which Palm Springs contrived to throw in his way. —
Ian Corby, Hawksmoor Perroquet
The gentlebird just named was the source of further disturbance to the equanimity of Mr Ian Corby, inasmuch as, following the marriage which very soon took place between Mr Ian Corby and Miss Isolde Perroquet - more on which, presently, - that gentlebird continued to live under the roof of the happy couple which had been his roof when he was in his pomp. In those unguarded moments when Mr Ian Corby was honest with himself, he found it necessary to admit to himself that the presence of that gentlebird was something of an imposition. He would be for a space continually there, skulking in corners, unmanned, an apologetic ghost ready to be stumbled upon. —
Isolde Acridotheres
And then he would lower his head and busy himself with a fragment of nut or seed, or an imaginary speck upon his shabby plumage, and an awkward gloom would descend over the household, which would not even break when he shuffled out of the parlour, in order to skulk silently in his room. After a few days, Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet would mysteriously find himself in funds - Mr Ian Corby suspecting that Mrs Isolde Corby had a claw in the matter - and vanish, presumably into the fleshpots and stews of Knowle West and Withywood. Then, for a space corresponding to the length of his absence, the gloom would lift, and all would be sweetness and light, save for a certain alloy of uneasiness relating to the anticipated return of the prodigal parent. —
Withywood
The wedding between Mr Ian Corby and Miss Isolde Perroquet, devenu Corby, was at all events a pleasant affair. The groom, having owned to himself that his union with Miss Bianca Columbina had been a terrible mistake, and having been thoroughly harrowed by the charivari and the riots, confessed himself delighted by the demure deportment of his second bride. The ceremony itself, just as on the first occasion, was held at the Old Council House in Corn Street. Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet was fortuitously not absent on a bender and, withal grumbling, suffered himself to have his claws clipped and to be burnished by a species of bird-restorer, a very respectable middle-aged lady who advertised her services on a card in the window of Perky Pets, this fact being communicated to the betrothed pair by the excellent wife of Mr Jagtar Singh through the offices of that gentleman. Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet being by this means got up into a passable simulacrum of dignity, that bent-backed and broken parrot was suffered to give her away in marriage just as a father would, withal she was a foundling foisted upon a fellow, albeit since reconciled to that fellow. Sir Ezra Tertiary-Syphilis did not this time grace with his presence that gathering, although Lord Handjob very thoughtfully sent his salutations in the form of a personalised card featuring a photograph of himself disporting with champagne and a pair of his nieces in a hot-tub, and enclosing a cheque in a not inconsiderable sum drawn upon certain accommodating bankers in Reno. —
Corn Street, Lord Handjob
Once again, Mr Ian Corby was very democratic about the wedding list, and for her part the newly minted Mrs Isolde Corby obliged him with her readiness to sup with sinners. The cream of Bristol society was on this account in attendance, both at the ceremony and afterwards at the wedding party in the apartments in Southville: the harlequin Hieronymus and Solomon the sapient were suffered to put in an appearance by the Governor of Horfield Gaol, withal they were compelled to remain attached by their chains to the beadles of that institution who attended with them. Medusa the Gorgon also was suffered to sally forth from Eastwood Park, withal placed under similar restraints, and it amused all present to witness the petrification of the granite-faced ladies charged with conducting her thither. Fleeting appearances were also made by the fugitives Mr Crass Cheseham and Mr Francis MacMahon, both upon the pavement in Corn Street and later in the room of Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, where they made quite free with the Talcum of Medellin which had been obtained for that occasion, although they very soon made themselves scarce once more, fearing lest the bacon would apprehend them and haul them before the beaks, who were yet sitting upon their sumptuously upholstered assizes. Lo, upon the departure of the gentlemen aforesaid, Lord and Lady Snatch miraculously materialised, and took up where those same gentlemen had but lately left off, in savouring of the Talcum of Medellin and diverse other powders which had somehow escaped the depredations of Messrs Cheseham and MacMahon. Mr Don Quicksotte was there all day and all evening too, and partook of a considerable amount of the liquid refreshment that was on offer, and became really quite voluble, until the reproofs of Miss Minerva Ledwitch eventually subdued him. —
Francis MacMahon, Medusa
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