Gibbous House 94

With an élan quite disproportionate to that expected of someone recently emerged from behind a fireplace, his tiny feet skited across the parquet to a magnificent, if dilapidated, sideboard. The bowed legs supporting the piece were a pleasing reflection of the Professor's own supporting limbs; the rich walnut's topmost surface was a repository for tantali and decanters of every shape and size, a few dusty bottles stood guard amongst the undoubtedly valuable crystal. The Professor surveyed the glassware with a gimlet eye, then picked up the dustiest of bottles before announcing:

'My friends, let us partake of the Elixir Ordinaire! No pale imitation from La Maison Pernod Fils for we three, let us sample Doctor Pierre's original and best receipt and banish the woodworm from the soul, by a generous application of the spirit of the wormwood.'

For myself, his sanity came not less into question by this outburst. The professor removed from a waistcoat pocket a silvered object remarkably like a spoon, of a size with one suitable for the consumption of a pudding, save for the fact that there were several voids of rectangular shape in the metal of the bowl. From a long pocket of his frock coat he removed a paper bag and placed it on the sideboard.
Opening a door below, which gave an agreeably musical creak, he removed three small stemless glasses. Glasses marshalled on the sideboard, he placed a white cube beside each of the vessels.

He eyed both of us:

'Sugar cubes: another Scandinavian innovation. It appears the long nights are conducive to such inventions, does it not?'

He placed the not-quite-spoon over each glass in turn and poured a generous measure of a particularly foul looking liquid over a cube and thence through the voids in the spoon's bowl. Handing each of us a glass, he said:

'Absinthe! Aged and amber, the green spirit has departed but its strength remains.'

It was quite the vilest thing I had ever tasted; Miss Pardoner's aplomb while drinking it put me quite to shame, while the Professor seemed to favour the Slavic method of disposing of the disagreable taste of a spirit by throwing the entire contents of his glass at once -with venom- toward the back of his throat. He smacked his lips and said:
'Another?'

I declined politely and was rewarded with a sneer from both companions.

At precisely that moment the door opened wide and Maccabi entered, followed by a comical entourage consisting in Mrs Gonderthwaite bearing nothing and two simple looking fellows carrying vast covered platters of silver. These fellows had thus far not been in evidence at any time. Maccabi caught my eye and shook his head. Quite what he meant by that, I knew not.

The two salver-bearers were as like as twins, and, furthermore, were sufficiently low of forehead to allow of a criminal bent to their nature, according to some fanciful theories. Certainly this facet of their appearance did little to commend a level of intelligence above that of a simian, as did the clatter of the salver lids as both contrived to let them fall to the floor in the act of presenting the constituents of the evening's repast. A large roast of beef filled the one to overflowing, a medley of vegetables and a prodigious quantity of potatoes covered the other with a salivatory completeness.

At this point we none of us were seated. I took my seat at the head and gestured the hesitant Maccabi to be seated. Mrs Gonderthwaite's back was already receding, however the brothers primate stood slack jawed in mirrored pose on either long side of the table.

'Out!' I bellowed, and thereby ascertained that their capacity for communication reached the basest human level.