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Authors: Charlotte MacLeod
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these clods how to run a meeting. His installation had taken place only last month. This was the first time he’d got to officiate. How breathtaking had been the moment when the Great Chain was withdrawn from its secret hiding place by the Opener of the Shell and hung around his palpitating neck. At the end of the meeting, the Chain was supposed to be returned to its hiding place with the Secret Valedictory Chant. How the hell could he conduct the concluding ceremonies without the blasted Codfish?
Where, Jeremy asked himself as he sipped with less than usual relish at his whiskey-laden coffee under its cargo of whipped cream, had the damn thing got to? The Great Chain couldn’t have fallen off. Its overlapping links had been clinched together forever and aye by an old-time artisan, there was no clasp to come undone. The only way to get it away from him would have been to lift it over his head.
Quod erat absurdem. An experienced toper like Jeremy Kelling could never have got drunk enough on a paltry few schooners of special dark to be oblivious to any such trick as that. Furthermore, he’d been in full view of all the Comrades ever since he’d donned the Chain, and there was not such unanimity of spirit among them that somebody wouldn’t have ratted on anybody else who made so free with the revered relic.
As the Codly coffee mugs were replenished, speculation about the Chain’s disappearance grew more imaginative. Everybody naturally accused everybody else of codnapping. They took to visiting the men’s room in squads to make sure nobody was trying to sneak the Codfish off in his codpiece.
Mrs. Coddie, of course, was exonerated, firstly because she’d been under escort by the three Hod-carriers all the time, secondly because she’d been in her swoon during the time when the fell deed was most likely to have befallen, and thirdly because she proved to be somebody’s mother.
At last a thorough search of the room was conducted, with all the members crawling around the floor on hands and knees, barking like a pack of foxhounds, but finding nothing. For the first time in the club’s history, they had to close the meeting without the Valedictory Chant, though a few Comrades gave it anyway either because they were too befuddled not to or because they always had before and they damn well would now if they damn well felt like it.
Most appeared to regard the Great Chain’s disappearance as a jolly jape and to be confident it would turn up at the April meeting pinned to the seat of the Ancient and Timeworn Overalls. Jeremy Kelling was not so sanguine. His first act on returning to his Beacon Hill apartment was to fight off the ministrations of his faithful henchman Egbert, who took it for granted Mr. Jem must be sick because he’d come home sober and perturbed instead of sloshed and merry. His second was to put in an emergency call to his nephew-in-law, Max Bittersohn.
“Max, I’ve lost the Codfish!”
“I knew a man once who lost a stuffed muskellunge,” Max replied helpfully.
“Dash it, man, cease your persiflage. The Great Chain of the Convivial Codfish is a sacred relic. Like the grasshopper on top of Faneuil Hall,” he added to emphasize the gravity of the situation. “It disappeared while I was removing the Ancient and Timeworn Overalls from the Ceremonial Cauldron.”
“That was probably as good a time as any,” said Max. “The Chain didn’t fall into the pot, by any chance?”
“How the hell could it? I looked. Anyway, the thing was around my neck. I’d have had to fall in, too. Which,” Jem added, “I did not. I’d have remembered. I’m not drunk. Egbert can testify to that.”
“Put him on,” said Bittersohn.
Egbert, to their mutual amazement, was able to vouch for his employer’s unprecedented sobriety.
“It’s very worrisome, Mr. Max. I’ve never seen him like this before. Except sometimes on the morning after,” he qualified, for Egbert was a truthful man when circumstances
Where, Jeremy asked himself as he sipped with less than usual relish at his whiskey-laden coffee under its cargo of whipped cream, had the damn thing got to? The Great Chain couldn’t have fallen off. Its overlapping links had been clinched together forever and aye by an old-time artisan, there was no clasp to come undone. The only way to get it away from him would have been to lift it over his head.
Quod erat absurdem. An experienced toper like Jeremy Kelling could never have got drunk enough on a paltry few schooners of special dark to be oblivious to any such trick as that. Furthermore, he’d been in full view of all the Comrades ever since he’d donned the Chain, and there was not such unanimity of spirit among them that somebody wouldn’t have ratted on anybody else who made so free with the revered relic.
As the Codly coffee mugs were replenished, speculation about the Chain’s disappearance grew more imaginative. Everybody naturally accused everybody else of codnapping. They took to visiting the men’s room in squads to make sure nobody was trying to sneak the Codfish off in his codpiece.
Mrs. Coddie, of course, was exonerated, firstly because she’d been under escort by the three Hod-carriers all the time, secondly because she’d been in her swoon during the time when the fell deed was most likely to have befallen, and thirdly because she proved to be somebody’s mother.
At last a thorough search of the room was conducted, with all the members crawling around the floor on hands and knees, barking like a pack of foxhounds, but finding nothing. For the first time in the club’s history, they had to close the meeting without the Valedictory Chant, though a few Comrades gave it anyway either because they were too befuddled not to or because they always had before and they damn well would now if they damn well felt like it.
Most appeared to regard the Great Chain’s disappearance as a jolly jape and to be confident it would turn up at the April meeting pinned to the seat of the Ancient and Timeworn Overalls. Jeremy Kelling was not so sanguine. His first act on returning to his Beacon Hill apartment was to fight off the ministrations of his faithful henchman Egbert, who took it for granted Mr. Jem must be sick because he’d come home sober and perturbed instead of sloshed and merry. His second was to put in an emergency call to his nephew-in-law, Max Bittersohn.
“Max, I’ve lost the Codfish!”
“I knew a man once who lost a stuffed muskellunge,” Max replied helpfully.
“Dash it, man, cease your persiflage. The Great Chain of the Convivial Codfish is a sacred relic. Like the grasshopper on top of Faneuil Hall,” he added to emphasize the gravity of the situation. “It disappeared while I was removing the Ancient and Timeworn Overalls from the Ceremonial Cauldron.”
“That was probably as good a time as any,” said Max. “The Chain didn’t fall into the pot, by any chance?”
“How the hell could it? I looked. Anyway, the thing was around my neck. I’d have had to fall in, too. Which,” Jem added, “I did not. I’d have remembered. I’m not drunk. Egbert can testify to that.”
“Put him on,” said Bittersohn.
Egbert, to their mutual amazement, was able to vouch for his employer’s unprecedented sobriety.
“It’s very worrisome, Mr. Max. I’ve never seen him like this before. Except sometimes on the morning after,” he qualified, for Egbert was a truthful man when circumstances
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