Milburn Pennybags, the chief executive officer of the Pipco Mining Corporation was a punctual man. He awoke every morning at precisely 6:30 am and immediately got dressed in the clean pressed clothes that had been neatly laid out for him the previous evening. There would be no dawdling in bed for Mr. Pennybags. Luxury was best relished at the office where he could run his hands over the pages of his ledgers.
He arrived to work every morning at exactly 7:15 where his morning coffee and buttered cheese biscuit were already waiting for him, placed on his desk beside the mail by his ever attendant secretary Miss Selma Hacker.
After savouring a sip of his morning coffee, Mr. Pennybags picked up a typed report from his chief of security and gave it a quick scan. Reports of a monster terrorizing the lower streets of the city… a murder of the donair lady in the overtown of Falun… a missing sheriff and his deputies… nothing too alarming. But then Mr. Pennybags got to the last line!
“Miss Hacker!” he called into the speaking tube beside his desk. “Are you busy?”
“Just having a smoke, Mr. Pennybags” came her raspy response.
“Get Eatmore Flax in here,” he said, requesting his chief of security. “I need to talk to him ASAP.”
“Yessir, Mr. Pennybags, right away.”
*wonders if Mr. Flax is a distant relative of Filmore Fiber*
“Take care with that, Walden!” Emerson warned as the skinny bellhop struggled to hoist the cask of White Cane from the back of the wagon. “That stuff is quite flammable.”
“Not to worry, Mr. Mornington,” the boy said, tapping the side of his nose. “I have it all under control.”
“Good luck, kid,” replied Emerson, returning the nose-tapping signal.
“There ye be!” Pa called out with a wave as the returning ass-cart crossed the moat and came to a stop in front of the barn. “How’d ye fare b’y?”
“Went good, Pa.” replied Cleetus, turning and smiling at Daisy who was rather scantily clad in her knee-revealing tavern wench attire.
“He whistled some happy when we told him he’d won a free week, all expenses paid at the fancy Brunel Hall down in New Babbage.” Daisy chimed in.
“Gullible fool took the train ticket too,” Cleetus grinned. “He’s on his way to New Babbage now.”
“Just as Sir Emerson was hoping.” Pa tapped the side of his nose. Daisy and Cleetus returned the nose tapping gesture. “come on, we gots us lots more ta do.”
“Ya gots ‘er Maudie?” Cleetus called out into the moonlit shadows at the side of the road.
“Yep,” Maude Ibbs replied stepping from behind a tangle of brush growing wild at the side of the road. She tapped the side of her nose. Daisy and Cleetus returned the gesture.
“Give me a hand haulin’ this here chest up into the back of the cart,” Maude took hold of one side of a wooden crate measuring about three feet to the side. “You might need ta help too Daisy, this old girl may be gentle but she be a might heavy.”