Gaargh, I remembers the days when I could raise a telescope to either eye without raising a cruel chuckle. Twas back when I could still lay both me eyes upon The Good Ship Lollipop in all of her stereoscopical glory. We were just embarkin’ on our course of piracy and step one was making the ex-Hope Foundation vessel sound more fearsome, like ‘The Scuttlin’ Crab’ (puns’re popular). Or ‘The Tumescence’; twas an excitin’ time.
To pay our way we dipped our toes into the business of assassination. Gaargh, ye excess of sibilance and sociopaths were likely to provide a range of joys. Piracy lends itself to a certain level of violence in any case, and it’d embellish our fledgling resumés. We slashed, shot and stabbed our way through the unpopular classes, losing the odd hand to incompetenth or mocking a thpeech impediment. Tis just part of ye job.
The last assassinatory assignment before we set sail on the seven seas was the bed-time bucket-booting of Albrecht Wifesister, hotelier and breeder of cousins. I carefully selected me team from the least damaged or drunk of me crew. That left just me and Hamish McMuffin to break into the notorious Hotel de la Confiture Noire. I were doubtful of his use, since his girth scorned the traditional use of windows for accessing ye prey.
Indeed, even the patio portals proved too narrow and we were forced to ring the doorbell impatiently. Hamish disarmed the surprisingly well armed bellboy, rearmed himself with the lad’s firearm then strong-armed his way through the armoured door and into the hotel where he promptly tripped over the antique armoire. There he also slew the harmless old man guardin’ the coats: a noble death. By some miracle neither guards nor guests burst forth to challenge our subtle entry, despite Hamish’s impenetrable Glaswegian honking and booming about the place like angry geese with sinusitis.
The carpets leading to the stairs were a pattern of webbed fingers. Twas a pretty hotel, the sort suitable for honeymoonin’ cousins with an interest in the fruits of their loins sprouting into the fearsomely similar fellows in the paintings be-hanging the walls.
We crept up the stairs. I crept up the stairs; Hamish’s vast mass over-stressed ye banisters which popped out from the stairs, showerin’ the hall with splintered wood. Twas the fortuitous sharpness of them flying shards what gave us early warning of the misshapen oddities sneaking up on us. From our reviewing of the artwork in ye foyer we easily identified them as Albrecht’s kin. Gaaargh, twas like fighting a gang of yokel fist-monsters. ‘Twould be an honour to shorten this family’s line.
We fought them off, or rather Hamish did, since his bulk were impassable. I contented meself with tossin’ obscene vases at the ab-featured elbow-faced crowd. At last they stopped their twitching and we continued our ascent with a mite more caution.
After some elementary educational errors, we burst into the rightly-numbered suite with our swords all pointy and poised. The room was dramatically spattered with blood, the decorative work of the man in black whom Hamish had squashed in bursting through the door. Despite our bloodthirsty readiness we found Mister Wifesister lying in the bath, unbreathin’, his mouth stuffed to burstin’ with human toes.
“There’s been a murrrrder” cried Hamish, redundantly. Using our keen deducin’ minds, and the empty bag labelled ‘toes’ in the pocket of the squeezed man by the door, we concluded we’d still a fair chance of claiming our fee.
To remove any confusion we left the Hotel de La Confiture Noire with flames lapping at the roof. We retired to the ‘Bared Rear-Admiral’ tavern. There we received our bounty, and while indulging ourselves, we learned that the peculiar inbreeding of the isle oft produced men with an excess of toes but left ye ladies with a plurality of bosoms.
Gaargh, ye could take a man’s eye out with them things.
