LordPeter List Literary Contest

Feeling that I had done about as much justice to the old bill of fare as anyone could reasonably expect, I trickled gently into the lounge.

I don't know if you've ever been in the sort of hotel I mean, but for all that everyone present is supposed to be filled with the old joie de vivre and casting all cares to the wind, there's something uncommonly depressing in the air, if you catch my drift. There was an overwhelming atmosphere of gloom, ormolu and potted palms, and a sense that any of the cocktails you ordered would be pink. A group of orchestral chappies loomed in the underbrush, whacking gamely away at a fairly waltz-like rhythm, whilst a fellow with an eye like a garden toad steered a species of female in a lurid pink dress round the dance floor.

A waiter shimmered by. I ordered a shot of the old corpse-restorer and cast an eye about the proceedings. It was not a bracing prospect. The dancing female wore a sickly sort of simper she was flinging about the room at anyone who seemed interested. In the regular run of things, I rather thought she would be a perfect devil on the tennis courts. Her partner, on the other hand, looked as though a spot of healthy outdoor exercise would do him no end of good. He didn't strike me as an outdoor sort of cove at all. He had what even the kindest observer might be tempted to refer to as a cheese-like pallor, and his resemblance to a wheel of the finest aged was, if anything, enhanced by a style of hairdressing that could only be described as slick.

There was a general extravagance of frockery about. I have a taste for the simpler sorts of feminine decoration myself, and I suddenly felt as lonely as a teetotaller at a country house ball. Every woman present was exhibiting a line in detachable bustles and yards of ruffles that their grandmothers might have thought a little on the full-blown side, and now that I came to notice, the coy simper had spread like measles from one side of the room to the other.

Dejection settled on me like a mask of night - or is that the other thing? At any rate, I felt like a tiddlywink champion who has accidentally strayed to the whist table. No one could say I am not of a sporting nature, having been bred to it, as you might say, from the cradle, but the rules of this game were not in my book, and the look of the players on the scorecard turned the blood to ice in the Vane.

-- the cat in the bag

Parody of...

Back to the LordPeter Literary Contest page.