Dressing the Authority in Viking Blue and Ottoman Black
“He’s not
actually the authority,” Melinda griped.
“He is
an authority,” Belinda retorted.
“What is he
an authority on?” Carstairs, recently returned from the eastern front,
asked an adjacent visitor to the punchbowl.
The other
man, still in possession of his wits (and wit) despite his relatively deep
intoxication, suggested that the answer was punch itself. He dipped his cup into the bowl yet again
with a smile.
Carstairs,
however, who was listening to the girls’ conversation with his tinnitus-warped
ears, was reminded of Hemingway for some reason and began to wonder if it was
at all possible to inject a mythical meeting between the great old writer and
the Beatles into the narrative.
“He smashed
his way into the harem headfirst,” Ringo recalled, “Breaking a horn in the
process.”
.
