Chapter 3

In which a short note from Yellow Finn is left on our hero’s doorstep.

Dearest bug,
If you need be reminded of the terror which befell my parlor this past night– a cascade of folly for which only you and the devil may be blamed– this letter may find itself unuseful. But forgive me this rashness; this letter is, of necessity, being dictated, as I am poolside and occupied with two tonics, and thus lacks reserve; indeed, dictated to my second secretary, as all my primary house staff is engaged with the raking of what cabbage still so brightly decorates the lawn. If the case is otherwise, you perhaps have already forecasted the inability for you to return for some months to come.

My dull friend Benitito, I insist upon the absolute unrepeatability your blunderi magni (polity and my noble nature demand this; nor, indeed, could I, in good conscience, disgrace my hire to be party to these deeds as she is of the soft sex), but you were swept out on the human surge repulsed by your repulsive repulsions, custom necessitates I avail you of some things.

The Church, two nations, and the well-reputed hospitality of yours truly, the undersigned, have suffered each an undeserved portion of your insipidness. As I speak these words aloud (the temporal gap between utterance and inscription, being in this case, I regret to say, hopelessly irrelevant) the Alexandrian clergy have not left the seclusion my quaternary compartment since their worrisome disappearance therein, not soon after your own departure. And those guests who fell into a rapture of transvestism, inspired (or possessed shall I say) to compulsively reenact that most of wretched of wretched betrayals, will, I doubt, have not yet regained the constitution of which our land prides itself and which so suddenly absented itself as a result of that awful spouting.

Our personal relationship may find a way to unscathe itself, but for the moment let it rest that your notch is low and the local bishopry has taken note. I regret, Tito, I will no longer have circumstance to hear your bawdy coptic slurs, but I fear most society will shun you now and for some time longer. Still, I suspect some are quick to forgive and live on with a surfeit of pity; this sort of person, I hear, may still yet send you gifts.

Your humble informant,
Absalom Absalomovich