SIDEKICKS, SERVANTS AND SECOND FIDDLES

SIDEKICKS, SERVANTS AND SECOND FIDDLES.

In the City of London’s Cornhill, located in a building built in 1893 and originally a bank, there is a bar and restaurant called ‘The Counting House’.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear the phrase ‘counting house’ I think immediately of Ebenezer Scrooge’s cold and dismal place of business in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’.  In fact, in David Pamment’s modern day adaptation of the story, published in 2012 and aptly entitled ‘A 2012 Christmas Carol’ (available from Amazon and Lulu.com), Scrooge is reimagined as Eddie Scuds, aka Edward Scudamore-Smythe, a drug dealer, loan shark, pimp, murderer and all round bad egg who often conducts his unsavoury business (excluding the murdering part) in the self-same (but fictional) ‘The Counting House’ bar.

About to conduct business of a strictly savoury kind are the committee and members of the newly formed ‘Society of Fictional Sidekicks, Servants and Second Fiddles’.  The meeting is being held in the ‘Dining Room’, one of the event spaces available for hire at ‘The Counting House’. If we are very quiet, we can slip into the back of the room and observe the proceedings.  Shhhhh…

“Right then everybody.  If there are no objections…”

This was spoken by the middle member of a panel of three sat behind a table at the front of the room.

“I can think of one,” interjected one of his colleagues.

“Not now,” the first speaker responded.  “If there are no further objections, I’d like to call to order this inaugural meeting of ‘The Society of Fictional Sidekicks, Servants and Second Fiddles’. 

“For the record, the first point of business is for the membership to ratify the make-up of the management committee. By way of an introduction, my name is Mole, as in Mole from Kenneth Graeme’s masterful work ‘The Wind in the Willows’, and I am, subject to your ratification of course, your Chairperson.  To my left, needing no introduction, is Samwise Gamgee…”

“Please call me Sam,” said Sam.

“…is Sam, your Secretary elect…”

…Pardon the interruption, but interesting fact: J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892, just one year before the building now known as ‘The Counting House’ was built, and on the same day and month as the aforementioned author of ‘A 2012 Christmas Carol’.  Now, where were we?...

 …“On my right,” continued Mole, “is Marcie Johnson, stroke De Roberts stroke Carlin, from the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon strip, expertly created and crafted by Charles M. Schulz.  Marcie, regardless of her many surnames, wishes to be your Treasurer.

“Due to my being extremely short-sighted (for the record, and despite what many people think, moles are not actually blind and can in fact detect light and movement) I will ask Sam to tally the votes.  All those in favour of ratifying the committee as it currently stands, please raise your hands…

“How many Sam?”

“None,” answered Sam.

“Harrumph,” harrumphed Mole.  “All those against….”

“None,” repeated Sam.

“Most odd,” muttered Mole.  “All those wishing to abstain…”

“None,” said Sam for a third time.

“What on earth?” queried Mole. “No fors, no againsts, no abstentions!”

“No members, sir.”  It was Marcie who now spoke.

“I tried to tell you,” said Sam, a trifle smugly.

“You mean this is the full extent of our membership, the two of you and me?” asked Mole.

“Yes sir,” said Marcie.

“Yes Master Mole,” echoed Sam.

“Please don’t call me ‘sir‘ or ‘master’,” Mole responded.  “I’m a second fiddle.”

“And Marcie’s a sidekick and I’m a servant, but now we’re a management committee we surely have to bar ourselves from membership.”

“Hmmm…” hmmmed mole.

“Also, sir,” Marcie said.  “’For the record’, I might have called Peppermint Patty ‘sir’ but I think it’s fair to say I was the brains of the operation. I looked myself up on ‘peanuts.wikia.com’. It says I’m an ‘intellectual and a bookworm’ and that I’m ‘well known for the high quality of her [my] schoolwork’…”

…We need to break off for a second here so that I can issue a spoiler alert to anyone about to read either, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, or ‘The Wind in the Willows’, or indeed both. Righty ho, let’s return to the meeting…

 “Likewise ‘for the record’,” said Sam, ‘standing up, with his hands behind his back, as if he were at school’, “I  know I did the gardening at Bag End and called Master Frodo ‘Master’, and that Elrond himself said ‘it is hardly possible to separate you from him, even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not’, and that I said to Captain Faramir ‘don’t you go taking advantage of my master because his servant’s no better than a fool’, but I did see off Shelob and I did rescue Master Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol and I did go with him to the end and…”

“If I could speak for a moment,” interrupted Mole.  “For the record, I may indeed have played second fiddle to Rat, Badger and Toad, and yes I did need to be saved by Rat and then Badger when I got lost in the Wild Woods, but, and at my own behest I might add, I did go on a secret reconnaissance mission to Toad Hall, disguised in Toad’s washerwoman outfit don’t you know, and told the Wild Woods’ guards to expect a mass attack, thereby ensuring more weasels and stoats were outside than inside when we snuck in via the secret tunnel.”

“It seems to me, sir,” observed Marcie, “that.... someone has just entered the room..."

The someone in question was none other than Eddie Scuds himself, pint of Carling in hand...

..."Apologies," slurred Eddie, "I think I'm in the wrong room.  You don't 'alf look like that Sam Gamgee fellow from them films.  And wot's a flippin' mole doin' in 'ere?  I'm gonna report this to thr flippin' council I am."

"I can assure you," interjected Marcie. "He has every right to be here."

What-e-ver,' Eddie answered back, before reversing out through the door he has so recently entered by,

"As I was saying, before we were so rudely interupted, " said Marcie, more than a little miffed that Eddie had not mentioned her. "It seems to me, Sir, that we are all more than mere sidekicks, servants and second fiddles, to coin a phrase.”

“I second that,” said Sam.

“And I third it!” exclaimed Mole.  “It only remains then, lady and gentleman, for me to close the last ever meeting of the ‘Society of Fictional Sidekicks, Servants and Second Fiddles’. So, it’s goodnight from me...”

…and it’s goodnight from him.  I ’for the record’ am off to the bar for a pint; I wonder if they serve ‘Barliman’s Best’?

copyright D M Pamment July 2018