Monday 24 September 2007

"MY MOTHER SAID....."

Miss Marple writes:

Discreetly entering my bedroom I beheld Demure Dorcas, the Crafty Chambermaid, on her knees rummaging through the contents of my suitcase which she had dragged from under the bed. She was so absorbed in one of the Poirot mysteries by the immortal Dame Agatha Christie [from whom I learned most of what I know about sleuthing] that she only realised I was in the room when I exclaimed “Pray what does this mean?”

“Oh excuse me, Miss Marple,” the saucy hussy replied, “I was dusting under your bed when I found this fascinating masterpiece.”

“And who told you to pry into my belongings, Miss?” I sarcastically enquired.

“One must always be on the safe side, Miss Marple”, she replied. “I was brought up to check all unopened packages for possible intruders. As my late revered great-Aunt the eccentric music hall artiste Nellie Wallace frequently used to sing:

My Mother said

Always look under the bed

Before you blow the candle out

To see if there’s a man about.

I always do

And you can make a bet

It’s never been my luck

To find a man there yet.”


“Singing disreputable ditties won’t excuse your misbehaviour, ma’am”, I retorted. “I shall summon the Beadle and have you put into the stocks until Anticant convenes a Burrow Court.“

“I shouldn’t advise it if I were you”, the wicked wench responded. “You’ll never guess what I found under Anticant’s bed. Or under the Beadle’s and Mrs Malaprop’s – not to mention Dame Barbara’s. I hardly think they would like you or anyone else to read about it in the Burrow Bugle, which I fear they will do very soon if you proceed as you propose.”

I was dumbfounded. “You are a blackmailing chit!” I exclaimed, and set off to find the Beadle.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Beadle's and Mrs Malaprop's bed" indeed!

I do not share a bed with the Beadle.

I am a respectable woman.

Anonymous said...

The Crafty Chambermaid has maligned Mrs Malaprop.

To the stocks with her!

By Order

Anonymous said...

Little do they know that their bedroom secrets are already in the grubby paws of the Burrow Bugle's gossip writer, Snoopy Scribbler, who will be revealing all in his next 'Through the Keyhole' column.

trousers said...

"A chit!"

I must say I'm shocked at such wanton language of the gutter.

Bodwyn Wook said...

trousers, pray /do/ keep them ON for Christ's sake! In the States (of Depravity!), the writer should have indited the line in question thusly (in American):

"Yer a blackmailing li'l CLIT!"

Anonymous said...

'Chit' is a perfectly respectable, if slightly archaic, word meaning [per Oxford Concise] a young, small or slender woman. No doubt some chits are wanton, and some wantons are chits - but not all, in either case.

Anyway, Mis Marple would be the last person to use the language of the gutter. She is even more demure than Dorcas and more respectable than Mrs Malaprop.

Emmett's version is another matter entirely, and introduces new aspects that would never have occurred to Miss Marple.

Anonymous said...

Trousers may not be removed in - or from - the Burrow.

Any empty or vagrant trousers will be hoisted aloft the flagpole.

By Order

Bodwyn Wook said...

SORRY, Aunty, once again /I/ have precipitated yet another avalanche of smut & wishful thinking....