LordPeter List Literary Contest

You don't know about me without you've read a book called Strong Poison, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Miz Dorothy Sayers, and she told the truth mainly. There was some stretchers in it, but mainly she told the truth. Now the way that book winds up is this: I got off, and ended up with a passel of money, more than a body would know what to do with. So I'm stayin' at this fancy place, real sivilized, and after I eat I go into this big room with little bitty tables all around, and enough space for a revival meeting in the middle.

There's only one fella and a gal out there, though, dancing to some high-tone music that these fellas in stiff suits are playing. He's dressed up fine enough for a funeral, with his hair all slicked back, and she's got on a long, fancy dress the color of the plums I used to steal from the Widow's garden. I sit down by myself and ask for a drink, and then I sit there drinking and having a good smoke, and looking round.

The ladies is all dressed up like my old aunt and her friends when they went calling, tied up tight and all over lace, and so many feathers you'd 'spect 'em to fly away. They was all smilin' at the fellas, and actin' like they wasn't strong enough to pick up a napkin if they dropped one, but I wasn't having any. I seen some of 'em playin' tennis, and I can tell you, most of 'em could chop a pile of kindling and then haul it a hundred yards into the house, no problem. And the fellas musta known that, but there they were, jumping all over the place, fetching and carrying.

Whatever game was goin' on here, I didn't know the rules. Finally I couldn't stick it any more, so I lit out. I got into my old rags again, and was free and satisfied, walkin' along the beach, listenin' to the waves comin' in, the way they kinda chattered to themselves, and watching the long white road the moon lays down on the water, and hearin' the whippoorwill, and once in a while an owl hooted. I was lonesome, but it was a good kind of lonesome, sort of deep and quiet-like, and anyways you ain't never really alone by the sea.

-- a solitary red pawn

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