31: Sorry for moving quickly, people, but there’s no time for this

Jeb Smithikins: This whiskey is too wet!

Cadbury: Jeb makes a good point, but he’s pointing at it the wrong way.

Cadbury was in a position that was precisely halfway between standing and sitting. It may have seemed strange except it was so effortless. He looked around the table, then at Gullet.

Cadbury: It is getting very wet in general. Gullet, please bring my raincoat.

Gullet: We did not prepare for indoor rain, Detective.

Cadbury: Fallibility is such an ugly characteristic, Gullet. [Glaring at him] I’ll have your coat then.

Gullet removed his coat and brought it to Cadbury, who threw it behind him as Gullet walked back to his seat.

Cadbury:  Jeb, your whiskey is not wet. You are dry. You are dry despite pouring fluids into yourself, bathing in them, diving into a bottomless pool of them every day, and sinking to the bottom curled into a ball… you still remain dry, don’t you Jeb?

Jeb just sat staring at his three-quarter-full glass, his head slightly tilted with confusion. It was not clear he has heard anything Cadbury had said.

Cadbury: You are like a log baking in the sun, covered in sawdust, covered in paper, covered in tinder. And your team of well-heeled attorneys are like matches, each ready to strike and ignite this campfire of your self.

Jeb had started slumping, which wasn’t a natural seating position on a bucket.

Cadbury: We all want to see you burn Jeb, and you know it. You keep screaming “I’m dry” and throwing liquids on yourself… but in a nifty twist of something approaching irony, turns out the liquids are flammable.

Jeb: Who’s the talking idiot?

Cadbury: You’re going to blow Jeb. It’s going to make a mess. Gullet, get me a raincoat for protection.

Gullet began moving in the direction of his previously discarded coat.

Cadbury: Gullet, before that, please take a course on Introductory Advanced Rhetoric.  Actually a better way to learn is to give courses, so please compose a course, and slot me in as a student. Be ready because I yell a lot of questions. Also a course on Understanding Clues would be good. That topic has been bothering me lately.

Cadbury: Okay, back to Jeb Smithikins…

Jeb Smithikins had keeled off his bucket and was slumped on the floor with some foam bubbling at his cracked, parched lips. Jezzebel stuffed a napkin into his shirt.

Cadbury: I see Jeb is preoccupied with some dribbling. Let’s talk about Eastman Piper. Sorry for moving quickly, people, but there’s no time for this, truly, and I worry that there may not be space either.

Eastman reach for his napkin, unused as the food had been inedible, and began putting it in place.

Cadbury: Eastman Piper, I posit that the deep sea invertebrate under your skirt, as it were, is nothing but a perverted concern for the plight of the unfortunate.

Eastman: Mr. Detective Sir, you are nothing if not the opposite of something…. correct.

Cadbury: Correctness is far from my personal concern. I assure you if you understood my concerns you would appreciate this. Meanwhile, tell us about your donations to the Hope for the Hopeless foundation?

Eastman: I-

Cadbury: Spare me the fanciful excuses. [Taking a moment to glance around the table while seemingly moving on from Piper] Is everyone enjoying the fishing expedition? Amazing how many soulful boots you dredge up from the depths, when you use psychoterrorist worms as your bait.

Cadbury: But tomorrow we’ll be looking to catch some fish!

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