Of Explosives Strong Enough to Wreck The Throne

The most ignoble army ever to sally forth from the shores of England has found itself a home. Driven abroad by lethargic indifference to their plight, tossed like fetid refuse upon America’s shores, they have at last found safe harbour. Ushered reluctantly through the golden gates of ‘ole New York’ they have found grudging solace in the only refuge afforded them, that bustling, crumbling, begrimed sanctuary, the sixth ward. Put far away from the well paved streets and gas lit walkways of wealthy Upper Manhattan socialites; they tenant unsanitary conditions, poorly ventilated, and prone to occasional outbreaks of Cholera. As well they might! Having brought neither wealth nor social standing to the banqueting tables of enterprise. A strange and inverted world this is, where the same poverty that  reduced Irish farmers to penury can, in this place, and at this time, excite in them a thrilling degree of cunning, propelling some to fame and wealth, and others to infamy….and wealth!

Take Thomas Warne, he whose travels to Calcutta and the Indies came to be most thrillingly reported in the Morning Courier. Orphaned at the tender age of ten, he enlisted upon a packet boat bound for China, and having the good fortune to be abducted by an elderly pirate from Canton, turned ‘privateer’ at the age of twelve. With the money made from his share of ‘privateering’ he purchased his first ship, traversing the waters of China, Cuba, and the Indies. Till at length he was able to set up shop in Manhattan, leaving the running of his ships to others. T’was rumoured that Mr Warne had once been a near-starved Irish emigrant, t’is even said that he sat by his da’s withered corpse for nigh on five days ere he was found. These days who may tell? At thirty he’s as handsome a man as any in New York, one worth $100,000, and the world is his oyster!

To look upon the corpse of a man as one would do a dog is a gift few have been cursed with. Isaiah Wynders is such a one, a Tammany man from the crooked shine of his hob nailed boots, to the brilliantined wave in his jet black hair. Look upon that snaggle-toothed alligator smile ye ladies and despair! If ever a fiend bound for hell were clad in mortal flesh, t’is he! A river boat rat, a gambler, a hard eyed filleter of reckless men, a purveyor of favours and champion of the common man! You doubt me dear reader? Then look upon ole Mother Connor as she clambers gamely out of her rocking chair doffing her bonnet with a shrill,

“God save ye Mr Wynders!” and Mr Wynders halting briefly in his journey turns aside to clasp the frail old widow’s hands and enquire as to how

“Frances is keeping and how the trade suits him?” whereupon Widow Connor’s dull eyes brim with grateful tears,

“The trade suits him jes fine your grace” says she, and with a tremulous shake of his hand she resumes her seat by the front door and he passes on.

“Bless me if it ain’t Mr Wynders!”

This time it is Mrs O’Shea-baby at her hip-who halts his turn into Shadder Avenue, asking after his health and thanking him for the good turn he done her husband (now a docker), and her son (an apprentice carpenter). And so it continues from one avenue to the next, with much tugging of forelocks, shaking of hands and partaking of blessings. Indeed he is so burdened with gratitude and thanks, t’would seem that the path to perdition lies blocked and the gates of heaven beckon, were it not for the iniquitous lure of King Cotton. The virile life’s blood of the southern states, it sparkles and glistens like white gold on New York’s docks. White gold that may only be stored by Tammany porters and packed by Tammany dock men, upon ships which may only dock with the tacit approval of the harbour commissioners-Tammany men everyone. And now t’would seem (through no fault of his!) as though the lucrative flow of commerce-and bribes- were to be put in serious jeopardy.

“Have they shot Lincoln yet?”

“Nope, he got through Virginia in one piece,  Maryland too”

“He took Pinkerton agents with him?”

“Ten of em, toting Winchester rifles and packing Colt pistols or so I am tole! The south can be a bottomless terror for them that don’t love er!”

“They mean’t to take him in Baltimore?”

“They failed, for better or worse he’s president now!”

“Has the world gone mad? There wasn’t a working man in alla New York didn’t vote Democrat! I saw to it!”

Isaiah Winders smiled, “There is no denying the service that Tammany has rendered New York. There is no other organization for taking hold of untrained, friendless men and converting them into citizens. Who else in the city would do it? For all that, somebody voted us a Republican president, and now? Half the Southern states have seceded!”

Boss Tweed chuckled, he puffed ruminatively on his cigar for the longest time, then he chuckled some more,

“Where’s Michael Houlihan?” he asked stretching forth a beringed hand that the fearful miner might kiss it,

“Yer Grace!” murmured the man holding the Tammany society ring to his lips as if Boss Tweed were the Pope himself (heaven forfend!). Boss Tweed winked at Isaiah Winders who sizing up the shabby little coal miner wondered what use he could possibly be to the Tammany cause. He did not have to wonder long,

“Just look at him! Ain’t it just good to look at him! Here stands the reason why come hell or tarnation no Republican president will ever defeat the will of the people! Take a seat Mr Houlihan!”

Michael Houlihan sat. Boss Tweed beamed and though the smile should have warmed the very innards of Michael Houlihan’s soul it had the opposite effect. For who had not heard of Tammany Hall? The tiger of the five boroughs devouring all who stood in its path, including him if he wasn’t careful. He shouldn’t have taken that job at ‘The Silver Slipper’ nor the ‘gift’ of 50 dollars but taken he had,now there was the very devil to pay for it.

“Tell Mr Winders what you have told me” and so with a heavy sigh Michael spoke, of an iron clad ship, a brace of  vengeful Molly Maguires, two Pinkerton agents and their scandal drenched cargo, the exiled Lord Grid-Iron. Blushing furiously with shame he recounted the manner in which the English aristocrat had been abducted, and of his intended destination, the coal fields of Oklahoma. Boss Tweed looked across at Isaiah Winders whose face was strained with incredulity,

“The abduction of an English minister of the state? He’s lying!”. But Boss Tweed shook his head,

“I telegraphed London two weeks ago, Lord Grid-Iron is missing, believed dead. Just imagine how grateful the English would be if we were to return him…for a price.That iron-clad ship set off from Liverpool harbour over a month ago, it should arrive any day now and when it does? I want you and your men ready and waiting!”

Oh My America! My Newfoundland!

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The reader will have the goodness to imagine the delicate frisson of the hunt, hunting is not a novel occupation by any means, no, this traditional practice has existed for centuries. It is depicted upon the interiors of the caves in which Neanderthal man is said to have dwelt, it is a part of the Native Indian’s intiation into manhood. To position one’s self in close proximity to one’s prey and from a very specific and precise vantage point. To observe one’s prey gently cantering to a spot nearby, to watch it  stop and ponder, to see a troubled look cross it’s brow. More extraordinary still, to watch as it cocks-a-swagger and struts abroad, parading the length and breadth of the docks with it’s red headed doxy! It takes a fastidious disposition to restrain any sudden impulse to throw one’s target to the ground, to take one’s game captive. To wait. To observe,then to move in steadily and with immediate effect and success, such was the inclination of the man Geraghty and such was his practice.

“Well and if it isn’t my Lord Grid-Iron! Gone to ground in a flop-house by the sea! And with his little red headed moxy too!” The men surrounding Seamus Geraghty laughed at that, their tanned and weathered visages crinkling with mirth at his humour. When Tobias tried to join in the joke all fell silent, their faces becoming mirthless and grim, their eyes ablaze with something that felt a bit like hate, except that Lord Grid-Iron had difficulty defining it quite so precisely. From his birth he’d known that there were those who would envy him his position in life and hate him for it, but he’d always managed to keep those people at arms length. “It’s Seamus isn’t it?” Tobias smiled tremulously, ” Seamus Geraghty? Mary Geraghty’s lad? How is Mary by the way?”

“Starved to death along with my Da, Mr Geraghty, her husband” Tobias Grid-Iron scratched his head, he glanced at the four burly men surrounding him, he gulped as they glared back at him “Oh” he spluttered, “I am sorry” Seamus Geraghty looked him up and down before giving his men a curt nod, “Into the carpet bag with him before I change me mind” Tobias screamed, he struggled, he bit, he swore and all to know avail. Flailing around like a done to death piece of Haddock,he was slung head first into the oversized carpet bag whose clasp was then firmly padlocked. Thrust into that cramped and stuffy cocoon of fabric he started to panic and then passed out. Just as well, for at the instant he was so imprisoned, the door to his lodgings were flung open and in piled three sabre wielding Indian Fakirs. Astonished by the dramatic entree of the three Indians the Molly Maguires retreated from the carpet bag which they had been about to boot and stomp upon.

The eldest of the Indian Fakirs lowered his sword and affected to bow deeply before the Molly Maguires, “You will please forgive us Sahib for stealing that which you have so recently acquired, our need is greater than yours” catching hold of the carpet bag he tugged it towards the door, “Says who?!” roared Geraghty, his face flushed a deep crimson, “Where it not for that Gombeen my Da and Ma would be alive still! Gabriel O’Hara would not be enslaved in the mines, he’d be working his own lands! And Cathy O’Houlihan’s brother would be alive still! Instead they hung him for preventing his family from being evicted! All the men that stand here alongside me, they and their families have suffered for the sake of that baggage! We want justice and we’ll not give it up!” he tugged the carpet bag back into the room.

Navendra Patel sighed, this whole business had become so very tiresome, that Lord Grid-Iron was a terrible man with a terrible reputation was a fact beyond disputing. Indeed so terrible was his reputation that one had to fight one’s way through the many just men who wanted to acquire him, in order to ensure that he faced…justice. “We too wish for retribution, we are the three Brahmin of the Banashankari Temple, he stole an artefact from our temple, this with the help of an associate we have retrieved. But it is our earnest desire that this devil, one of many who participated in the wholesale slaughter of the people of Jhansi, should face divine retribution!”

“We’ve no argument with ya there! If we cart this to the America’s he’ll be judged and hanged nice and swift, the best kind of divine retribution there is!!” the Fakir sighed, “That is almost what we had in mind but not quite, we had hoped to have him brought before the village elders in Jansi and then poisoned”

“Ye don’t happen to know Father Fitzpatrick d’yeah?” Navendra’s face lit up at the mention of the name, for everybody in Jhansi knew the name of the good father, if it were the same man. “The holy father I knew rescued many a wounded and starving villager from the hands of the Imperialist forces, may Krishna curse and ravage them!” Seamus nodded, “That’ll be the good father, forever sticking his nose in where the British didn’t want it! We’ll take this gift” he kicked at the carpet bag inside of which Lord Grid-Iron let out a hale and hearty shriek, “To the good father, he’ll know what we should do with it” the three Fakirs nodded earnestly in agreement but the eldest coughed politely and raised a slender wizened hand,

“May I ask why it is that you refer to Lord Tobias Grid-Iron as it?”

Seamus snorted, “What else d’ye call a man that treats other human beings as if their needs were of no consequence next to his own? To treat those you were called to serve as if they were little more than upright walking beasts. Why, such a man is a man no longer, he has become a beast himself!”

And so dear reader, we observe the first ever Indian-Irish treaty in action, a mutually agreed and agreeable determination to decide Lord Grid-Iron’s fate over tea and biscuits at Father Fitzpatrick’s asylum, prior to carting him off to America or if the fates decree India. And so these men of justice joined arms to haul the carpet bag and its contents down the stairs, out of the front door and round the corner to an alleyway where a horse and cart had been stationed, ready to cart Lord Grid Iron and his pursuers away. Night has not yet fallen dear reader, but there is a splendiforous sunset on the horizon and it is towards this that our vigilantes cheerily ride.

Oh Mio Babbino Caro…

“If you do not help me Olly I do not expect to live past the end of the week! The Molly’s are out Olly! Out and about and looking for me!” Lord Tobias laid a scented hankerchief beneath his nose and sniffed at it, he dabbed at the tears which trickled down his cheeks freely, dampening the knot of his scarlet cravat. “It’s not as if I’ve done anything to deserve this! I’ve been an admirable Chancellor of the Exchequer, my brilliance has shone out past the confines of old England even to the boundaries of our beloved empire! Why does nobody inquire as to where I am Olly? Why does no one inquire after me?” Lord Tobias sobbed a-fresh into his scented & monographed hankerchief, his head reclined against the back of a plush (and overstuffed) chaise longue and a pale hand clasped to his elegantly waist-coated breast. Oh his was a tragic dilemma! Though he had never been more elegantly dressed.

“Toby my dear” demurred Oliver Micheletti,”One can hardly complain can one? Your wife thinks you dead, Parliament thinks you dead, the Mollies are sure to attend your very public funeral, and once they are satisfied as to your evident demise, and have returned to the Americas, you may resurrect yourself and go on as you always have” Oliver puffed langorously on his cheroot, savouring its bitter sweet taste. Cheroot’s were supposedly ladies cigars; but he had picked up the habit of smoking them whilst fighting alongside the Umbongo Bongo during the siege of Khartoum in the Sudan. That particular fray hadn’t ended terribly well, though he had at least acquired an elegant smoking habit. “True you may have to relinquish the role of Chancellor as well as that of Second Lord of the Treasury” Lord Toby sobbed afresh, “But at least you will have retained that most valuable of assets, your life” knocking back a small glass of absinthe he surveyed Lord Toby’s rooms. Not bad for a man who was being hunted by his former tenants, the relatives of those who had either starved to death during the Irish potato famine, or frozen to death out of doors because he’d had them evicted….from a distance.

“Oh, how can those people hold me responsible for whatever tragedies they might have endured in that veritable Irish wasteland? I was nought but a child at the time! A veritable child!” Oliver smiled sardonically at his none too bright friend, who had, at the time of the Irish potato famine, been in his twenty fifth year, nevertheless he had ascended to the chancellery and made his mark there, as the silk mill workers strike and the Battle of Grid-Iron Square had clearly shown.

“My dear the poor are ever with us. Come now! Cheer up! Do! How is Becca?”

“My constancy has become a veritable proverb!” opined Lord Toby with more tears in his already considerably swollen eyes,”I would have been cast a-drift! Alone in the world! Were it not for her! Mon Ange! Though I do wish she would come to see me more often than she does!” a cloud passed momentarily over his visage,”But no matter! She alone of all women deserves my unbridled admiration and when I am accepted into public life once more she shall be duly rewarded”

“I hear Lady Grid-Iron is in London” Oliver remarked, feigning disinterest, for if ever there was a lady he’d have liked to ravish ferociously it was her, meek and mousy though she appeared, there was a steely intensity to her carriage and a sparkle in her eye that spoke of more than just bonnet beribboning or embroidery en pointe.”Oh is she?” Lord Toby knocked back his fifth glass of absinthe and reached for his opium pipe. His lack of interest in the woman he had gone to such lengths to marry amused Baron Micheletti, who gently despised his friend. For here was a man whose emotionally disconnected approach to economic policy making, had brought poverty, and destitution, to the working class minions of the empire.

Whether sweet England and its people prospered or starved he ate heartily, drank heartily and caroused with abandon. It never occurred to him that the poverty and destitution he so blithely imposed could breed the kind of tenacious hatred that had led to him being holed up in the Nag’s Head. Baron Micheletti smiled absent mindedly at the little white mice he had brought with him on this final visit to his erstwhile friend.”You know my friend, I was once like you, a staunch aristocratic capitalist, but then I met Madame Guacamoley and the rest, as they say, is history”

Lord Grid-Iron observed the mice frolic and scamper upon Baron Micheletti’s hand and forearm with rapt disgust, for it seemed as if the stark white furry rodents scampered and chittered in time to Baron Micheletti’s rendition of Puccini’s Rigoletto. Could mice decipher music? Toby Grid-Iron was so rapt at the sight that he did not notice the Baron pulling out a Colt revolver as he quietly opened the door to the Lord Chancellor’s lodgings. Though he did with horror note the discomfiting sensation of a sudden gust of cold air accompanied by the emergence of a manifestation he had desperately prayed he would never be privy to, t’was shorty Seamus (his former nursery companion) in all his monstrous glory. “Oh ye kin run” hissed Seamus Geraghty, leader of the Molly Maguires “But where’s there to hide?”

The Hunt Is A-Foot!

There is rest, dear hearts, at the end of all terrible strivings and endeavours, at the end of all heart breaking struggles there is a slumber filled peace and there is rest. Come with me dear hearts, take my hand and let us travel to Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the ‘warriors of promise’ languish and groan in a ward assiduously and none too discretely guarded by the forces of law and order. Here lies Milty, a blood stained bandage wrapped neatly around his head, being fed beef broth by a kindly nurse, it is the first mother’s love he has ever known, it is the first hearty hot meal he has ever had occasion to enjoy. And over there in that corner by the Christmas tree sits Wendy Woodbine being comforted by a one legged match girl, each holds a rag doll smoothing their fingers wonderingly over the delicately painted dolls’ faces. These are the first toys they have ever been given, donated by no less a philanthropist than Lord Shaftesbury himself.

And see here, the kindly face of the Reverend Arthur Farquar, as he delicately and most sonorously intones the testimonies of Gove,

“And Moses came down the mountain of Gove, and he saw that the people rose up to frolic, and to play, before the golden sacrificial calf of equal pay and conditions they had fashioned for themselves, and behold the spirit of Gove was grieved, and he was filled with wrath”

“Bloody hell! He do go on don’t ‘e?” whispered one silk mill worker to another

“I’d swing for ‘im any day of the week…if I had a bludger handy, why don’t someone shut ‘im up?” replied his comrade, his eyes roving wildly around the hospital ward looking for something, anything to hurl at the Reverend Arthur Farquar, as he patrolled his flock, reading all the while from the sacred testimonies.

“I wouldn’t lay a finger on ‘im if I was you” replied another, “e’s a friend of Bodoo’s”

“Wot im?! I didn’t know Boodoo ‘ad any friends…”

There was much exchange of surprised glances at this little tit-bit of information,

“Well e’ has. That’s ‘im. So lay orfff!”

The silk mill workers who had been privy to this conversation, stare with pop-eyed amazement at this disciple of Gove. For his sombre dress and stern demeanour give no hint of his prestigious connections, he seems lucid though obsessed, he looks sane though a little lacking in warmth, he clutches at his worn copy of the testimonies of Gove with the characteristic fervour of an abstemious true believer.

“Sought ye to to throw off the shackles of St Gove without his most reverend & sacred consent! And without my benediction! Cursed art thou amongst the flock! And lo Moses did smash the stone tablets on which he had inscribed the mos maiorum of St Gove. And lo, he did grind the stone into powder and bade the people eat of it and yeah, verily, verily, did they choke”  

As he intoned these words Arthur Farquar’s gaze swept over his flock, most of whom lay prone on hospital beds, groaning in pain. He felt his heart surging with love for these fallen mill workers whose murderous rage and destructive actions had taken them so far from the glories of Gove.  It was his duty now to lead them back to the straight way and it was a duty from which he would not flinch!

“When’s Mrs Seacole happening by? I could do with a shot of gin after him!” muttered Bert, his back hurt something awful, his head was throbbing and he counted himself lucky to have been sneaked onto the ward by Lady Grid-Iron (Lor bless ‘er!). But having to listen to all this preaching with out so much as a drop of ‘by your leave’ it was too much! The only thing keeping him here was the fear of winding up in Newgate, at least here he had a chance of escape.

Most of the patients lie snug a-bed, warmed throughout for the first time and permitted their first ever experience of indolence, a state the rich know only too well. Some sleep with smiles flickering ocasionally on their faces, all frowns washed away in a sea of warmth. A great fire has been lit in the fireplace at the end of the ward and many of the wounded chimney sweeps have clustered around this, toasting freshly cooked turkey twizzlers in batter. As they chatter and chortle, their faces all flushed and greasy, an old woman limps towards them,

“Ere! You can’t smoke that in ere! This is a ‘ospital!” piped up one of the freshly washed boys,

“An a very nice ‘ospital it is too, but Jaesus! It’s cold out and I can barely warm me bare bones with a pipe and a smoke, so if it please yeh I’ll be muddling off in a while but I jus thought to ask whether my Toby was amongst you?”

“Toby?” said the chimney sweep surreptitiously eyeing the trousers he could glimpse from time to time beneath the worsted dress, “Ain’t never erd of him” the old lady fiddles with the inside of her bonnet, drawing forth a sovereign. And as she does so the chimney sweep glimpses some stubble on her chin,them Molly Maguires! He narrowed his eyes,

” We didn’t go to war with the likes of Tobias Grid-Iron for the sake of money! Put your sovereign away! I knows what you is and I knows what you want and I ain’t blaming ye but we don’t knows where he is, he should be swinging from a gibbet outside a Newgate, but that’s only for the likes of us!” he opined bitterly, turning back to the fire and his friends. The old lady (who is not an old lady), turns away clutching her shawl to her bosom and singing all the while quietly to herself she leaves the ward and shuffles down the corridor. The old lady shuffles past hospital ward after hospital ward, each closely guarded by an officer of the law,finally she/he halts before a stall at the end of the corridor where sits an apothecary, an administer of medicines. The apothecary, Mr Scroggins no less, of Muck Lane, looks a little surprised and dismayed when he spies the bristle chin and those rattle-snake eyes hidden beneath the brim of a be-ribboned bonnet; but the surprise is only momentary and he submerges it quickly,

“Get the word out” the bonnet laden insurrectionist whispers, “Fifty pounds goes to the man that’ll tell us where Lord Grid-Iron is hid”

“Fifty pounds?” Scroggins whispers back,

“Fifty pounds alive, ten dead”

Scroggins chuckled,”Much more like it!”

Of Secret Love & A Coffin Notice Long Deferred

A brutal quiet has descended upon the Grid-Iron home dear reader, an eerie tomb-like silence. Even the Nightingales and the Cardinals that would gather and descend twitteringly upon Grid-Iron Square have fled. Not so the workers, Grid-Iron Square is deserted but these grim faced comrades have over-run Lord Grid-Iron’s town house and now, having barricaded themselves within, they await that final onslaught from ‘the enemies of promise’ .

“Ere Mickey fancy a beer?”

“You’re joking aren’t yeh? Have a tipple of Gin, it’ll warm you to the bones so it will, t’is awful gusty in ere! ”

Bert nodded in agreement, “Them leaded windows ain’t all they’re cracked up to be, we patched ’em up best as we could though” he eyed Mickey sharply, “Shouldn’t you be in pursuit of His Mibs?”

Mickey shook his head “I’m one that got out of that coal mine of his in one piece, after the walls collapsed, though there’s many that didn’t and many as lost their children too. I’ve done my share, I’ll leave the rest to the Molly Maguires God save ’em, fancy a pickled turkey twizzler? ”

“Nah, I’m feeling too gusty, I’ll have a tipple of Gin though, you seen Boodoo?”

A sultry evening at dusk dear reader, night has fallen. But the skies still blaze orange and crimson, lit up by the bonfires that abound in Grid-Iron Square and by the blazing conflagration eating its way steadily through the east-wing of the Grid-Iron home. Lady Grid-Iron and the servants have long since fled the premises, bundled into a coach and driven post-haste to Lord Grid-Iron’s country residence by Francis, the page boy. But where, pray tell, is Lord Grid-Iron? Let us alight upon a roof top not a quarter of a mile from a Grid-Iron chimney and observe a desperate, scrambling pursuit .

“Gombeen man! Gombeen man! We’re upon ye!” pistols can be heard being cocked and then fired and each near miss, each bullet that flys within an inch of it’s intended victim is greeted by a shriek and then a bellow of “Sweet Gove save me!”

“Sweet Gove? Sweet Gove? Of what use is such a profligate curse to such a Gombeen as thou? We’ll have at ye Gombeen man! We’ll have at ye!”

And indeed it does seem as if Lord Grid-Iron’s time has come, for as he scrambles desperately up and over one tiled roof after another,his face a ruddied sweating mess, his clothes befuddled and begrimed with soot, it seems that his speed has  slowed. And as he slows, his poorly used muscles trembling with fatigue, it seems that his pursuers have sped up, their legs and arms scuttling ever more quickly over each roof and towards him. Indeed it is as though Nemesis (the goddess of divine retribution), is carrying them on her wings as they fly through the air and relentlessly bear down upon him.

“My poor Sinead burned to death in one of thy coal mines!”

“Aye! My mother was driven off her own land by one of thy agents!”

“Aye! Aye! And my Da starved to death at they hands thou accursed Gombeen!!”

“Help me! Sweet Gove!” Lord Grid-Iron screamed,

And it indeed seems as if his prayers are heard, and answered, by that most dubious of saints, St. Gove, for the roof he is splayed upon crumples beneath him, sending him hurtling into the room beneath, pursued by the outraged cries of the Molly Maguires who have spent weeks travelling to this sceptred isle, just to have the pleasure of getting their hands on him.

As he falls Lord Grid-Iron’s life flashes before him, his many triumphs in the House of Commons, his marriage to the most esteemed Kitty Grid-Iron, his burning passion for Mrs Hayes. His fall is a long one in which he ceases to scream in terror at his precipitate descent, becoming at once both tranquil and silent, for death on collision seems imminent. And indeed it would have been so, had he not most fortuitously, fallen through the roof of Mrs Hayes ‘up-town residence’.

Mrs Hayes is at the peak of her nadir; her partially exposed bosom lying resplendent in a bejewelled corset of jet black silk, her flaming red hair artfully held in place with ivory combs and draped over one shoulder. Unperturbed by Lord Grid-Iron’s sudden and unplanned entrance, she sings on,

“Take a pair of sparkling eyes,take a figure trimly planned, such as admiration whets” she tra-la-la’s and trills wonderfully, cracking her whip in time to the music.

Lord Grid-Iron falls heavily at the feet of her avid customer, a most unlooked for climax to the evening’s events. Mrs Hayes continues to sing, “Take all these you lucky man! Take and keep them if you can!”. Now consider the embarassing quandary, nay the excruciating ‘situation gênante‘ as the avid client (a close relative of a certain monarch), arises from his ‘love seat’ at the feet of Mrs Hayes and speedily exits her attic ‘play space’.

Groaning and rolling to and fro on the attic floor, Lord Grid-Iron clutches at his left ankle which he is certain has been broken. He groans and he rolls around in exquisite pain and as he does so Mrs Hayes continues to sing, “Take my counsel happy man! Act upon it if you can! Take my counsel happy man! Act upon it if you can!”

Tobias Grid-Iron has ‘acclimatized’ himself to the love of his love having many illicit liaisons, but he has difficulty resigning himself to her utter indifference to his excruciating suffering at her feet. He is mortified by his humiliation, he is heartbroken by her indifference, he faints…