All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred ten)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

 

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

 

(part two hundred ten)

 

 

 

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Try it and see.

Shute read a portion of Myra’s statement.

“Should he have?” Élucide asked.

“No. But one or two from the ship had been fetched in, Lubinski and the barkeep of the Longhouse Lounge, to have a look at Gorman. Shute was placed to see them at the threshold. The barkeep knew Gorman for a passenger, Lubinski not at all. Having three things to think of at once, Mr. Shute had made the best of it he could.”

How do I know, though? If the lady’s account jibes? See, I was a little tipsy, true enough.

Mr. Gorman. Do I need to explain this procedure? I will ask you questions, and I will write down the answers you give.

Gorman manifested the ways of a salesman, hinting and inviting surmise. How did he know, Shute had written down…that Miss Buckley’s statement was correct, in fact and implication? That she had not brushed past him in the lounge as a coded directive? That he had shocked her, and that if she had not been shocked, but were a shipboard character different in type to that of Gorman, his public conduct would still have been scandalous?

Suspended by Shute’s scratching pencil, Gorman volunteered he’d drunk four glasses of whiskey punch, four glasses all right, son, being they watered it down something rank. I put that in my notes. I turned em all over, my notes…my intelligence. And may those little penny-pinching fingers get the good of it. I’ve been discharged by my employer—you’ll be curious who that is, but first things first.

Itching, but not biting, Shute asked: You consider yourself to have been drunk, having imbibed four glasses of whiskey punch, at the restaurant bar, in the Longhouse Lounge.

Subject nods; subject is asked to state his response in words. Subject says yes.

Did you pursue Miss Buckley, and do so with the intent of accosting her?

Hell, no.

Shute being a young fellow who could not hear such a word, Gorman, after minutes, tried heck no.

Élucide, too cozy with Monaghan (as Weem’s grunt informed her), critiqued again: “He should have asked his two things separately.”

“Quite so. Quite so. And he did, when he came to think of it.”

You followed Miss Buckley with the intent to do so?

Now that I own.

Why did you touch her arm?

Happens by accident, things like that.

Why did you stand when Miss Buckley stood and place yourself such that she could not leave?

I made her a proposition. It was worth my while to have her hear it out.

Why did you place your arms around her?

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred eleven)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2025, Stephanie Foster)