The Time Machine of Thorrocks Manor - 8

“I have taken the liberty, sir, of preparing for you two rather fine boiled eggs, crowned and lightly salted, and some buttered toast as I felt that now might be as good a time as any for you to desist from listening further to your once-steaming porridge.”
“Do you think so, Gargers? Oh well, yes, you’re probably right.”
“I feel that Imight go so far as to suggest that you raise your left ear away from the aerial vicinity of your porridge and assume a generally more erect position and adjust the general direction of your gaze from a westerly to a southerly direction.”
“Good plan. But it has been very interesting. D’you know what it reminded me of?”
“I’m guessing, sir, that it may have been reminiscent of the time you came across a volcanic mud pool in Regent’s Park, on the way to Lady Melinda’s literary soirée where you became heavily smitten with the famous milliner Madame Hautchapeau and, in expressing your undying passion, you unfortunately happened to spread a large amount of mud all over her latest exotic and rather surprising yet still fashionable confection of pettycoats, fishnets and brocade finished off with a ten-foot high hat reminiscent of the leaning tower of Pisa, as a result of the fact that, in your fascination with the afore-mentioned mud pool, you had chosen to lie full-length in the muddy edges of the pool in order to extend your ear over the mud pool itself in order the better to hear the bubblings and slurpings of the mud itself.”
“Gorsh, Gargers, you must be psychic. Though you did lose me there in what I am sure must be one of the longest sentences ever said anywhere since the famous Putney debates that took place in the Jurassic era. ... D’you think Madame Hautchapeau appreciated my apolojectory gift subsequently to her palatial premises in Chelsea of giant turtles and manatees?”
“I am not sure, sir.”
“Now, Gargers, on a more jocular note, there is something that I wish to discuss with you. ... So, could you form into something of a crestfallen look, there’s a good chap?”
“Shall I stand approximately here and assume the required look, thus?”
“Yes, that will do nicely. ... Now, my issue for the morning is the matter of truth and the reasonably complete telling of such. I am ever so slightly troubled that you are not always telling me the truth in response to my various appeals for information.”
“Really sorry, sir.”
“So, for example, has there actually been a nuisance call?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes sir. ... and which reminds me, sir, that maybe I should attend to the call as you enjoy your eggs, sir.”
“Oh, okay, Gargers.”
“So, I will open and then carefully close the quadruple doors into the hall, the better not to disturb your repast, sir, and carefully stepping around the tiger ... hmmm ... the place where there was a tiger rug, complete with up-propped and heavily toothed head, and which appears to have walked, I will then tread my way to the reproduction Chippendale telephone table and raise the telephone, placing one bakelite horn near to my mouth and lifting the hanging bakelite earpiece horn to my left ear while staring nonchalantly at the seventh step of the grand staircase. ... Plantation Villas – the Warburton residence.”
“Ah, Gargoyle, can you sense the simmering steel of my anger which is about to explode volcanically into your ear for the way you have ... oh yes, Miss Frockmotion, all sweetness and light, yes ... umm, so, let me first rearrange my pince-nez and say quite simply that I have matters in place for the imminent end of that arrant piece of ... oh yes, Miss Frockminion ... let me say simply, matters in placefor the end of War, as in the personage and not the abstract concept. He will shortly receive a letter of invitation to Betty Thorrocks’s weekend shooting party this weekend. You must ensure that he accepts the kind invitation and attends the shooting. ... Look Miss Srocksmorton, how bleeding sweet, do I have to be? At least someone around here is making even the vaguest attempt at some piss-dreadful plot development, Miss Socksmotion.”
“I hesitate to ask, sir, but why is it that, in the background to our conversation, I get the distinct impression that a person, people or other are repeatedly yelling a word that sounds suspiciously like Throckmorton, Throckmorton, Throckmorton? Have you engaged the services of a new parrot, sir?”
“Ah yes, not exactly. That would be my new secretary Mith Srockmorton – she’s taking a while to settle in. She keeps changing her name, which doesn’t help.”
“Ah, I see that explains it. May I now propose that we end our conversation?”
“No, you bloody can’t.”
“Thank you sir, in that case might I propose that I leave you figuratively hanging for a while, while I desist from staring nonchalantly at the seventh step of the grand staircase and replace the telephone with one hanging ear piece on the Chippendale reproduction telephone table and tread my way carefully past where the previously extant tiger rug used to reside, complete with up-propped and heavily toothed head, and then open and then carefully close the quadruple doors into the breakfast room.”
“Same crestfallen position as before, please Gargers.”
“Yes sir. But, might I first suggest that I remove the serviette from the family-encrested napkin ring and place it on your front, sir, as you appear to have inadvertently spread quite a lot of egg over your purple pyjamas with the cunning and orange taffeta buttons.”
“Oh very well.”
“I will tie it into position around your neck, thus.”
“Excellent. You know, Gargers, as much as it is awfully fun sitting here in one’s breakfast room being served by one’s man, deep within sunny Kensington, when the air is crisp and the environs quiet now that the all-night party flappers have gorn home, I cannot help but enquire why you are so continuously and assiduously tightening the serviette around my neck to the degree that I am finding myself remembering that famous line of Beaumont and Fletcher’s, to whit of ‘being hoist by one’s own petard’ ...”
“ I am not entirely certain that Beaumont and Fletcher could be said to have written that particular line, sir.”
“Oh really?"
"I think that is a line from a play by Sir William Shakespeare, sir.”
“Was he a Sir?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“... very well, to the degree that I am finding myself remembering that famous line of Shakespeare’s, to whit of ‘being hoist by one’s own petard’ ...”
“Oh, do forgive me sir, I will desist from further tightening. I confess that I was distracted sir, by my current view of Dame Hermione, sir.”
“Oh no, is she back again? That’s the last thing I need, particularly in my current state of ever-developing apoplexia. What is she doing?”
“She’s talking to Miss Vu, sir.”
“Oh no, they’re not both on the perimeter garden wall, are they? Remember, Gargers, think carefully in your reply as we are working here on the issue of truthfulness.”
“No sir. They are in the library.”
“What are they doing in the library? Truth, please, Gargers, old chap!”
“Well, I surmise that they are enacting the dress rehearsal of a pantomine or some Dada-esque theatrical production, as Dame Hermione is dressed as an elephant and is in discussion with a personage dressed as a tiger?”
“And who is enacting the role of the tiger, Gargers?”
“Miss Vu, sir.”
“Miss who?”
“Miss Vu, sir. Miss Déjà Vu.”