A Pretty Mouth Read Online Free

HERE AT DOLOR-ON-THE-DOWNS STOP THERE IS A FELLOW YOU SIMPLY MUST MEET STOP HE HAS EIGHT LEGS AND BLUE SPOTS STOP HAVE YOU GUESSED THE SECRET STOP IF YOU HAVENT HERES ANOTHER CLUE ITS BETTER THAN THOSE BOTTLES OF TOOTHACHE REMEDY WE USED TO GUZZLE AT SCHOOL STOP REALLY STOP
     
    “Well?” asked the Lord Calipash, when I looked up at him.
    “It is certainly perplexing, m’lord. You obviously guessed the octopus part of the riddle—but whatever do you think he means by toothache remedy ?”
    “Heroin,” said the Lord Calipash shortly. “Bayer used to sell it, but it all got rather rum at Oxford when the lads started to really, I don’t know, crave it at all hours. So old Boffo stopped importing it and now it’s much harder to come by.”
    “I see. And have you … seen this octopus? Or sampled its …”
    “Yes to the first, no to the second. Alethea took a suck—my sister—but not me.”
    “And what was the lady’s opinion?” I asked, though I was more curious about the verbal action described by the Lord Calipash.
    This question seemed to sour the Lord Calipash’s mood significantly.
    “It’s hard to say,” he snapped. “Well, I suppose you should come and see. It’s part of my—our—conundrum.”
    Let me say that I know this next part of my narrative strains credulity, but it is wholly true. The Lord Calipash beckoned to me, bidding me follow him into the private bathroom off his suite. It was with some discomfort that I followed, saying that if the lady were occupied in some indiscreet manner I would not have intruded for all the world, but the Lord Calipash laughed unpleasantly and said that she certainly was, and that was the problem.
    The Lady Alethea was … in the bath. And when I say in the bath, I do not mean that she was laving herself in a tub full of frothy suds and rubber ducks. She was in the nude and fully submerged under the surface of the water, which trickled into the large basin out of the faucet, and though I did not like to look upon her so indisposed, when I noticed some, let us call them physical peculiarities , I could not help but stare.
    “It’s hereditary,” said the Lord Calipash. “Happens sometimes to Calipash females. Dunno what ancestor’s fault it is, but it’s a damn nuisance. Worse than the monthlies if you know what I mean.”
    “M’lord, I—”
    “No need to be polite about it, Jeeves, I know you can see the gills as well as I. To say nothing of the webbing between her fingers.” He leaned in to me and said behind his hand, “She gets it between the toes, too, but don’t tell her I told you.”
    I confess I was at a loss. I had no notion of what to say. I had never seen anything so strange during the whole of my life. Her condition baffled me—as did the Lord Calipash’s insouciance about it. For her part, Lady Alethea wriggled under the surface of the water and blew bubbles at us.
    Alastair lit another cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke back at his sister. “Well, what should we do about it?”
    “M’lord?”
    “How do we get her to change back?!” He seemed annoyed. “Bertie said you could solve any problem. Well?”
    “I—I believe I require further insight into the situation, m’lord,” I said. “Are you implying the, ah, octopus induced some sort of, ah …”
    “Well, we don’t know, do we?” The Lord Calipash sighed. “Usually it just happens during the dark of the moon. She goes all froggy for a night, so we bung her in a handy pond or tub or water-barrel and fish her out again in the morning and that’s that. But the dark of the moon was ages ago. Sucking on that blasted tentacle, I dunno, caused it, and ever since then she’s been like this. Is it permanent, do you think?”
    “I could not say, m’lord. Certainly I could call a doctor if you—”
    The Lord Calipash backhanded me across the mouth.
    “You will not speak of this to anyone,” he said softly, cracking his knuckles one-handed. “If you do I shall personally