The Time Machine of Thorrocks Manor - 6

“Hallo! HALLO! HAL-RUDDY-LO!”
“I think your interlocutor may have gone, Mithter Thithlethwaite.”
“Do you think so, Miss Frogmorton – surely not!”
“Mithter Thithlethwaite, I wath wondering if we could use thith moment of relative calm to have a short review dithcussion. I thought I might thwivel my chair round through 45 degreeth to fathe you directly and plathe one knee elegantly over the other, being careful to arrange my thkirt to ensure that my fathing leg is thtill quite neatly covered and plathe my reporter’th notebook on my upper thigh as a referenthe as I have put down a number of itemth for dithcussion.”
“Oh, very well, most inconvenient. At the same time, I will place the plaited wire of the bakelite ear configurant speaker of the telephone over my left ear so that it will not disturb our discussions, but I will also be able to hear should any idiot appear on the other end of the line.”
“I think you are jutht trying to be thilly to put me off, Mithter Thithlethwaite, but it will not put me off. The first of my issueth, Mithter Thithlethwaite, is the matter of my name. What is it, Mithter Thithlethwaite?”
“Well, Frogmartin of course.”
“No, Mithter Thithlethwaite, it is Thyrethe Throckmorton.”
“Oh, is it? Good Lord! Let me have a look here in this pile of guff. I’m sure I did receive some personal biographical details from Secretarial Disposition Services at the time of your first late arrival. Ah yes, here we are ... but it says here quite distinctly Miss Syrethe Throckmorton.”
“Ekthactly, Mithter Thithlethwaite, Mith Thyrethe Throckmorton. If you had looked at the papers from Thecretarial Dithpothition Thervithith, you would have theen thith at a glanthe.”
“So, let me get this straight, if I were to say Syrethe and Thyrethe, would you hear a difference between the two words ending in ‘ethe’?”
“No, they sound much the same of course, Mithter Thithlethwaite.”
“And is there then a difference between ‘zer’ and ‘ther’?”
“Well, yeth, they are clearly quite phonemically dithtinct. Really, Mithter Thithlethwaite, you really are a very odd conversationalist.”
“And what about the matter of your repeated lateness, Miss Throckmorton?”
“Oh, that is easily ekthplicable, Mithter Thithlethwaite, I am currently trying to complete my PhD on the influenthe of Catulluth on the workth of Ben Jonthon. I work in the morningth and lose track of the time before boarding the omnibuth.”
“How interesting, Syrethe. So, you are writing a thesis. Can I ask, say, if one of your best chums is talking to another of your best chums about your thesis, how exactly would they refer to it?”
“Well, as Thyrethe’th thethith, of courth. Really, Mithter Thithlethwaite, your approach to converthation is ekthtremely thtrange if I may thay tho. Well, now, to try and get back on track, I have obtherved, Mithter Thithlethwaite, that, and I hope you don’t mind my thaying thith, but you can often be ekthtremely rude and aggrethive with people and can, in particular, show a particular pension for mocking the afflicted.”
“Oh really, but I’m absolutely charming to everybody, I thought. I have a huge and most gentle heart, Miss Forgmartin. Oh, hold on, there’s someone on the end of the line at Purgatory Villas at bleeding last. ... Yes,what, no. Oh? Oh yes. Yes and no. No. No. Oh no. Oh right, thank you. ... Hmm, I’m not sure I understood much of that.”
“Tho, are thingth now thorted at Purgatory Villath, Mithter Thithlethwaite.”
“Well, I don’t really know. It was a foreign lady ... talked awfully fast, strong accent, all the words in each seeming sentence seemed to come out at once. Did catch her name though.”
“Oh, what was that, Mithter Thithlethwaite?”
“Miss Vu.”
“Mith who?”
“Miss Vu. Miss Déjà Vu.”