3pm

Alas there was a party of girl guides at the shove ha’penny table when we arrived and, after last time, there was no way we were going to demand they move. We went over to the bar, having left our trunks in the cloakroom, and ordered our drinks. We didn’t go in for any of that “round” business (except for any transaction involving Ian Devine <g>) as it just encouraged people to be in each others debt. That always leads to bitterness, unpleasantness and ultimately feuding.

“I would like a small glass of sherry please” I said to the land lord. He took a small sherry glass and filled it to within one metric centimetre of the rim.

“That’ll be a pound, mate” he said coarsely. I gave him the correct money and stepped aside for Ian Devine.

“I would delight in a glass of your finest sherry” he said pompously. The landlord took a much larger glass and filled it to the brim.

“That’ll be a pound, mate” he said. Ian Devine opened his purse and was about to hand over his coppers when I interjected.

“Hold hard!” I exclaimed. “Ian Devine has almost twice as much sherry as I do and yet we both paid the same amount.

“I’ve not yet technically paid” muttered Ian Devine.

“Then complete your transaction or I will be in breach of the truth. I have a point to make and you are holding me up.”

“My apologies” he said, counting out the pennies and eventually making pound.

“As I was saying, we have both paid a single pound and yet he has received by far the greater amount of sherry.”

“Well?” asked the barman as though I were Mogarian and didn’t have my translator switched on.

“I demand to know why my small glass of sherry and his large glass of sherry cost the same.”

“It’s simple – we don’t sell small glasses of sherry” he said contradicting his earlier sale of one small glass of sherry.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We sell sherry by the glass. That” he pointed to Ian Devine’s glass, “is a sherry glass. It is full of sherry. It is, therefore, a glass of sherry. It costs one pound.”

“But my glass…” I began.

“Is smaller than a sherry glass because you keep asking for a small glass of sherry. We once gave you a normal glass but you kicked up such a fuss that I sent my boyfriend all the way to Cymm just to get an appreciably smaller glass.”

“But the price differential…”

“Does not exist. We can’t go around inventing new things to program into the cash register just because we have one difficult customer.”

“I prefer the term ‘assertive’” I muttered.

“If we did that for everyone then anarchy would rule. Besides, we once gave you a normal glass of sherry and you became raucous.”

“Raucous?” I said, flabbergasted.

“Raucous” he said firmly. “You sang a filthy song about some woman called Watling, asked my stuffed moose head if it wanted to come back to your place and you threw up in old Jock McKayeffseigh’s sporran. He nearly stuck his dirk into you.”

“His what?” I spluttered.

“Oh yes and you started making low quality double entendres and caused great offence to the members of Flower Trimmer’s Guild who were lunching here that day.”

“That sounds most unlike me – are you sure it wasn’t my late brother Donald Brent. He is raucous. Or rather, was raucous. Before he was murdered. But that doesn’t answer my main point.”

“Which was?”

“Why, if you are unable to charge me less for my small sherry, do you not charge people like Ian Devine more for their large sherries?”

“It’s the computer – it wouldn’t like it.”

“Bah!” I exclaimed, surprising even myself. “I shall write to the manager and complain. Who is the manager these days?”

“I am.”

“Then I shall write to you.”

“But I already know what it is about.”

“I find a letter always carries more weight.”

“Not with me it doesn’t.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’ll bin it without even reading it.”

“Then I shall complain again.”

“I’ll bin that too.”

“I could take my custom elsewhere.”

“Gasp” gasped Ian Devine.

“You gasped?”

“We can’t leave the Elk and Bush. It has been our home from home ever since it was built. In an entirely honourable sense, I love this public house.”

“Well, there is that I suppose, but I can’t let the manager think he has defeated me.”

“Then I shall make a sacrifice” said Ian Devine bravely. He went back to the bar and handed over a five pence piece. “I believe you under-charged me” he said in a loud voice. “My drink should’ve been a guinea.”

“Oh, Ian Devine” I said with pride as we sat down. “That was marvellous.”

“It is a good thing that we are going to the United States of America today” he said after taking a sip of his newly expensive sherry.

“Because time is a great healer and when we return this whole unfortunate business will be forgotten?”

“No – merely that I couldn’t allow you to leave the country while you were in my debt unless I were accompanying you.”

“Good point” I said weakly, my new found respect for Ian Devine ebbing away. I took a swig of my sherry and, since I had missed lunch in all the excitement, it went straight to my head.

“There was a young strumpet named Watling…” I warbled as Ian Devine hid as much of his face as he could behind his freakishly large sherry glass.