Where to hide the beer?
‘Er, Poddle. Who’s the bloke in the suit?’ asked Chief.
‘His name’s Toller. Says he wants to invest in things around here.’
‘Another drink, Mr Poddle?’ asked Mr. Toller.
‘Yes, thanks,’ said Poddle. He was still preoccupied with trying to follow Arnold’s previous statement and cast about him for a pen and paper.
Chief noticed that Poddle had six full glasses behind his back and kept substituting a nearly empty glass in front of him when Mr. Toller wasn’t looking.
‘Going to have a drink later on, are we?’
‘Keep your trap shut Chief and one of these drinks will be yours. Otherwise I’ll set fire to your head-dress.’
‘Ah, what a pleasure it is to meet a sober man,’ said Chief, availing himself of an empty glass.
The Plan
‘Listen up, Chief,’ Poddle suggested. ‘If you can keep Toller busy for a while, I’ll sneak our drinks out into the other room.’‘How’m I supposed to do that then?’
‘Tell him you want to set up in business, but you’re not sure how to start. And take off that bloody silly feathery hat.’
Chief did as he was bid and sheepishly tried to brush his hair into an orderly state with his hands. As soon as he was distracting Toller Poddle set off with his very large tray of drinks heading for the snug and collided with QT.
‘Poddle. What are you doing?’ she asked, arching an eyebrow at the overflowing tray.
‘Just trying to keep you in business, QT,’ said Poddle, looking her up and down which took quite some time. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll drink up before closing time,’ he added.
‘I’m sure you will,’ said QT approvingly.
Meet the Landlady
QT was always friendly, looking genuinely pleased to see all her customers, though in the case of her male clientele, perhaps not as keen as they were to see her. There was always the sense that her friendliness was sincere but severely time-limited as part of her brain was trying to keep track of the next several dozen things she needed to do to ensure the smooth running of the tavern.
‘If you need an extra load of beer fetching from the brewery, I could do that for you with my wagon,’ offered Poddle, but QT was already greeting another customer and restocking the shelves of peanuts and she didn’t hear him. Meanwhile, Arnold Toller was still energetically selling himself to the regulars.
‘I’ve offered to help Vic mend his church roof, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s easy to do things like that once you’ve got the economy moving.’
Progress Imminent, well that's the name of the meeting ...
Number 14 had to discontinue its study at this moment because Chairentity Number 12 reminded it their next meeting was due to start. In order to reassure itself that such meetings were achieving something, Number 12 had decided that they would henceforth be called either business meetings or progress meetings. Its colleagues were invited to choose whichever name they preferred.
Copyright Peter Fairbother
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3 comments:
Good point Paddy. for one in your condition. But where is it on the human body?
Thankee Gnomes in Sarongs, I always enjoys a good beer tale. Ya may not Know it but i were married to QT a couple decades ago. She be a fine lass but wouldn't bring me home no free beer. It were grounds fer deevors so i kicked er oot.
Forgive my ignorance of anatomy, but whereabouts upon the humna body is the oot located?
Mr. Lilywhite, I kin be tellin ya why ya is confoosed. Yer thinkin the oot be on a humna body when in fact it be on a human body ya sees. I be not familiar wit the humna race. But I'm shore they be a fine people.