Crash! The saloon doors exploded open, and in through them sashayed Mel
Nasterfield, one of the Nasterfield boys. The few drunks and cowpokes
scattered around the saloon tensed. They knew what was coming. They'd seen
it before. All it took was for one of the Nasterfields to show up. Nothing
made them happy. All demanding with their unreasonable requests, it was as
though they deliberately intended that they wouldn't be satisfied, no
matter what. Mel jerked the dusty leather hat from his head and beat it against his arm, raising a small cloud of dust. "Lousy dadburn dust," he growled. Repositioning the hat once more atop the greasy pile of stringy black hair atop his head, he stepped up to the bar, casting a jaundiced eye into a half empty glass of beer.
"Mel..." Red the barkeeper acknowledged this unwelcome new patron. "What'll it be?"
Mel surveyed the assortment of booze bottles stacked along a wide mirrored shelf on the other side of the bar. Old Red Eye... Dead Man Rum... Old Harper's Whisky... there were dozens of brands of cheap hootch that could rot your stomach with one swallow. After several moments' careful deliberation, he slammed his fist angrily on the bar.
"I don't see what I came here for!" he shouted. "What the hell kind of place you runnin' here? Call this a saloon, do you?" He glared at Red.
Red sighed, then hoped his sigh hadn't been visible to this obnoxious patron. This was the way it always went when one of the Nasterfield boys came in. "Well, what did you want then, Mel?" Red asked timidly.
"Pancakes! Want me some damn pancakes!" he roared.
Meanwhile, Lord Farthingstoke's wife, the lovely Lady Doris, sat at her dressing table, idly contemplating which of her myriad perfumes would be most suitable to stimulate the attentions of Sir Bertram Bath-Barre, with whom she'd been having a torridly passionate (though, she prided herself, discreet) affair these last few weeks. Little did her stuffy husband and that bubble-headed twit of Bertram's wife suspect! Lady Doris, pausing between sniffs of White Shoulders and passion, allowed her mind to slip into a momentary reverie of the first day "Bertie" had surprised her as she bathed in the Ash Hole mud, the better to cleanse her sensitive pores, a procedure which undoubtedly worked, for upon her return home, Geoffrey (who rarely noticed her these days) had especially remarked how radiant and glowing she appeared. Ah, little did he suspect the clandestine champagne picnics, the passionate frolics in the mud, the trysts in the gazebo, the notes secreted in the hidden hole of the Ash Knoll oak!
Suddenly, she was jarred from her reverie by the sound of a discordant voice in the hall, a voice so grating upon her nerves that Lady Doris was immediately put in mind of a plethora of ragged fingernails screeching down chalkboards, a voice that was undeniably the voice of her unpleasant sister Agnes, a woman who, wherever she went, carried despair and bitterness like a battered suitcase.
Upon entering the brothel, the boys eyes became immediately fixed on the slight,
wiry man at the front desk. His hair was black, for the most part, though signs
of aging were upon him in the form of grey streaks. He was smoking a rather
raunchy smelling cigar and fumbling through an old issue of Popular Mechanics,
obviously pretending that he had not noticed the arrival of his guests.
"Excuse me," Joe piped up, "but we're looking for a Miss Burnya Undees."
The man lifted only his eyes and sneered, "She's got the day off, now unless you fellas want me to call the cops on you for loitering, you'll get out of here or else buy some of our 'goods'."
Knowing that their mother expected them home for dinner shortly, the boys politely declined the man's offer and trudged out the door. Chet, however, the boys portly pal had better things on his mind. Hurriedly, he groped around in his pocket hoping to find a bit of loose change.
"There!" He proudly stated as he plunked $2.35 in change onto the desk, "Gimme my money's worth, please, sir."
The man looked quizzically between the spare change and the chunky chum, then instructed Chet to pull down his pants and cover his eyes. The boy did as instructed and when the man saw that the instructions were followed to his satisfaction, he let out a loud, shrill whistle. Suddenly, a pack of ravenous rottweilers came bounding into the room, obviously in search of their dinner. Now dogs, when hungry, don't always think clearly, and this pack in particular was no exception. Having been weaned on a diet of vienna sausages, and as they were presently very hungry, their eyes locked on poor Chet, standing there with his flag at half mast.