Editor's Note:- Apologies for the brief delay in service. This was due to prolonged upset of the stomach area. Now muchly improved. Over to the Squire...
Part The Third
I had impressed upon the boy Wentbridge some basic training for garnering the attentions of the fairer sex - always be commanding, keep a firmly waxed under-nose carpet, avoid topics that will overheat their small girlish brains, all fairly standard stuff. To say that the lad took to it like a duck to water would be entirely the wrong metaphor to use but, through some supernatural effort on my part, I managed to somehow suppress his basic soggy nature. Having paved the way to the best of my abilities (an artist can, after all, only work with his materials), I instructed him to arrange a meeting with his would-be paramour at the local fine dining emporium. I was to be situated but a few tables away, ready to offer assistance should his naturally squelchy nature inconveniently reassert itself.
It was a fine plan and may well have worked but for one unfortunate drawback (unfortunate for Wenters, that is) - as soon as his intended walked into the restaurant, I was smitten. I had to have her - she would be mine and hang anyone who got in my way. All of which means that Wentbrige, cast adrift in the sea of love and pining for his pretty mermaid, was soon to discover that the rescue dinghy on the horizon was, in fact, the first signs of an oncoming shark.
Some of you may be thinking that this is a rather cruel and callous way to treat one's own flesh and blood. You're right, naturally. But all is fair in love and war. The strong survive and the weaker perish. And whatever justification is needed for treating a poor lovelorn fop like the sap he is in pursuit of a beauteous creature like Evadne (for such was this vision's name), so be it.
I didn't have long to wait for my opening. True to form, the lad's own damp squibbishness began to reassert itself and, as his drowning eyes cast around desperately for the life preserver of his cousin's presence, I affected to find the wallpaper intensely fascinating. This, of course, only exacerbated the damp chap's flustering and a visible flush began to rise on his cheeks as a visible boredom and scorn began to take hold on the object of his affection own visage.
Being a master of the art, I waited the optimum amount of time before choosing my moment and swooping in to rescue the poor dear from this blubbering simpleton. I am not a monster and did not revel in the wounded look of betrayal upon the unfortunate wretch's as I plucked his flower's attention away and escorted her from the premises. If he had known then what I know now, that look would have contained a fair amount of gratitude...
To Be Prolonged...
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