🚀 go-pugleaf

Heartsick with indecision, A. M. Ward debated with himself how many spoons
of sugar to have in his coffee.  No sugar at all had been his norm since
he returned from the war, but so many facets of his life had changed
in the recent past that he felt his ingrained habits should bow
acknowledgement to the new regime.  The notion of asking Roinn for advice
had occurred to him, but he seemed so absorbed in the task Ward had set him,
looking through old copies of _Vogue_ & _Vanity Fair_ in search of models
who had been employed by the sales catalogue companies, faded cutout by his
side, that Ward hated to disturb him.  Finally settling for one spoonful
of sugar and two of strawberry jam, he quickly drank, then rested his head
on his arms on the mahogany desk as he wondered what he should do with those
two imbeciles who'd disturbed him that afternoon.  He'd been so distraught
at the effort of maintaining an attitude of cool composure while facing
them in that same office, and at the trauma of disarming one of a post
office tower (though the fool had been holding it by the wrong end), that
he'd had to wander down to the village immediately after dungeoning them, to
calm his nerves by checking the best-before-dates on perishables: he did
love to write in his spare hours to the Consumer Association and have small
long-established family-run businesses dragged through the courts for
inappropriate selling practices, and once, he'd even had his picture, the
nice one with the Old Etonian tie he'd borrowed from the trainee milkman,
in the Liverpool evening paper for his troubles.  Now, he was very tired,
the walk had been longer than he had thought and Roinn had made quite
tedious company with his prattle of the ninth commandment and the new
longer-lasting lightbulbs.

Remaining slouched at his desk, Ward paid little heed to the occasional
sound of page-turning until Roinn started to speak, upon which, struck by
the note of discovery in his voice, he sat quickly up.  Although
considerably angered to learn that Roinn had interrupted his thought-pattern
for the sole purpose of remarking that he thought velvet bodices were %so%
terribly fifties, Ward managed a grimace of agreement, wishing to retain
for a time the assistance of the knight.  In truth, he was somewhat
frightened of him: the staunch air of purpose about him as he described the
long-term benefits of double-glazing with only minimum outlay and no hidden
upkeep costs had seemed quite formidable to Ward, to whom smalltalk was as
painful as the headache he'd given himself by wearing a monocle he'd found
lying about in the castle kitchens when he first explored the place, and,
despite Roinn's insistence on the excellence of folk remedies, he didn't
think the paper bag he'd worn over his head all the way back had helped in
the slightest.  Soon afterwards, Roinn came across an article on sewing
with metallic fabrics; this kept him silent for a while and gave Ward a
chance to sleep.

Meanwhile, down twenty-five flights of steps, our hero and his companion
were seated on a wooden bench in the converted wine-cellar, now fitted with
all the trappings of a well-run dungeon, though the bust of Byron in the
corner seemed a trifle incongruous.  The child was explaining the flight
mechanism of the bat, using as example one which had drifted too near him
and found itself, in consequence, wingless.  The child, you will recall, was
a boy-scout.  They are like that.  The rate of blinking of our hero, if
monitored, would not have done justice to the inherent fascination of the
subject under discussion; he was still more than a little peeved at finding,
as he was led to his cell, that the existence of a service-lift, sturdy
though slow, had made unnecessary his earlier pilgrimage up the main
staircase, and, after seven years in films and two FBI commendations, he had
really resented being told that his handling of a post office tower was, at
best, hopelessly ineffectual.  However, he felt he should, for the sake of
his image in the eyes of the readership, be nice to little children, so he
nodded at intervals and later assisted in the digging of a grave for the bat.