The Time Machine of Thorrocks Manor - 4

4
“You’ve gone up in my estimation, Gargoyle, you gargilious git.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Yes, I’m liking the Figaro-esque nature of your duplicity, Gargoyle. However, I think one could hardly describe that arrant platonic ideal of erroneousness, War, as anything of a Don Juan. Thus, I feel that to pull something of a fast one on that utter instance of inanity hardly suggests to one any kind of virtue.”
“No, I s’ppose, sir, you do have something of a point there.”
“Also, Gargoyle, you are clearly something of a blithering idiot yourself.”
“Why is that, sir?”
“Well, you have revealed unto me your own sad deception, thus offering me a skewer on which to skew you into the ground, you slithering squirming slime.”
“Yes, I sadly realise that now. It’s been something of a difficult morning and, also, I was, now irremediably, taken off my guard, sir, in finding that you were a skilled exponent of the art of telephone use.”
“Are you suggesting, Gargoyle, that it seemed a possibility that I would be unable to effect the simple technological expertise required in the use of the telephone?”
“I admit it had crossed my mind, sir.”
“What do you take me for, an utter and complete nincompoop!”
“Well, sir ...”
“Funny isn’t it, Gargoyle, how, in one’s various relationships, one finds that each takes on its own particular and special kind of mythology and psychology. I sometimes do find myself wondering if you feel that ours, for example, lacks a certain kind of emollience. ... Hallo treasure.”
“I hesitate to ask, sir, but does this now indicate a new dynamic in our rapport?”
“No, of course not. Think on, Gargoyle, particularly now that I have such a huge manipulative lever in relation to you. I think this is known as something vaguely akin to plot development, but I am not entirely hopeful on that score. No, I was welcoming my new secretary Miss Frogmorton into our pokey attic office. By the way, Miss Forgmorton, can I remind you that you are again an hour late in arriving in the office and that there is much to be done given that people will insist in passing orn all over the place.”
“Might I gently advise, sir, that it is not uncommon practice for individuals to move the bakelite horn receiver from near their cleverly waxed whiskers, when in parallel conversation with person or people or others.”
“Don’t get celever with me, Gargoyle; remember it’s all stick and no carrot now. I was going to mention the possibility of a useful spread-bet tip on a few upcoming races at Aintree as a motivator for your useful involvement in my latest stratagem to finally ease the world of that utter piece of tripe War.”
“Could I enquire whether your current renewed distaste for my esteemed employer has anything to do with the recent events surrounding Dame Hermione?”
“Look, I do the piss-awful plot development around here, Gargoyle, not you, but yes if you are referring to that gorgeous young filly to whom I am entirely and completely besotted, then yes.”
“But isn’t she nearly eighty, sir?”
“These matters are all relative, Gargoyle ... Lord! ... No, Miss Frogmorton, not now.”
“Might I just offer, sir, the thought that it was not deliberately really occasioned in any way by Mr Warburton that Dame Hermione would develop such a passion for him. It is a miracle how Dame Hermione managed to raise herself and her wheelchair to the first floor of Plantation Villas, and a most unfortunate instance of fate that Mr Warburton mistook her for an intruder or burglar in the darkness of his bedroom and most regrettably ejected her from the window ...”
“... and thus rendering her most regrettably and chronically facetious, I might add. The misery and trauma that she has been subjected to completely breaks my gentle heart.”
“Err, sir, I am being beckoned most urgently and must temporarily rain-check our discussions, as our cousins across the water are wont to say, or so I am told.”
“Oh, very well, most inconvenient. Who, pray, is the beckoner?”
“Miss Vu, sir.”
“Miss who?”
“Miss Vu, sir. Miss Déjà Vu.”