Limekiller!

Oh Doctor, I Don’t Like De Size of Your Needle, shrieked the record- player. Felix said she thought she’d pass over the fashionable munchies for the time being. Someone said that the Chief Minister, the Rt. Hon. Llewellyn Gonzaga McBride, was present. Or had been. Or w'as going to be.

“Really?” Felix. Looking around eagerly.

“Bound to be. Has to be.” — Alex; “Part of his official duties, laid down in the British Hidalgo Official Duties Act of 1958 as Amended by Orders-in-Council, 1965, ’66, and ’67: ‘. and the Chief Minister shall be everywhere at once. ’ Fact. That God is omnipresent, we take on faith. That the Chief Minister is omnipresent we don’t have to take on faith, we can see him for ourselves. - You guys coming out to the Caye tomorrow?”

The party was now at full blast. So was the record player. He Put It In, He Take It Out; He Put It In, He Take It Out. The Queen’s picture rattled on the wall. The three North Americans gathered close together in order to be able to hear each other shout.

WHICH caye?

GALLARDS Caye.

What’s doing THERE?

Party.

What?

A PARTY.

WHOSE party?

Well, really more of a PICnic. Sort of.

What?

A JAUNT. God damn it.

How come?

Noddy and Neville are going out, too.

Noddy and WHO?

And NEVILLE.

ENGLISH Neville?

Oh for Christ sake. NO. NorWEgian Neville.

Norwegian WHO?

Oh for Christ sake. YES: ENGLISH NEVILLE.

Oh. Well —

The plenty-decibels saga of the Doctor and His Needle, for which perhaps “suggestive” was far too feeble a word, came to its hysterical conclusion; while someone was trying to fumble the record over to its flip side in haste, lest, God forbid, there should be two seconds’ Silence, Alex managed to say that Neville and Noddy were going out to visit Major Deak, whoever Major Deak was, at Gallards Cave, along with Neville’s girlfriend and Noddy’s lady (ladies lived-in, girlfriends did not) and large hampers of victuals and Alex Brant and lots to drink and a couple of Nationals and their wives, ladies, and/or etc. and so — Alex suggested — why not Jack and Felix, too?

“We’re going in my launch,” he wound up.

Felix knew Alex’s launch, at least by sight. “Wouldn’t it be kind of crowded?” she asked, half-eager and half-doubtful.

“We’ll go in our own boat. Get an early start.” Said Jack.

Someone said, “ Where is the C.M.?”

Someone said, “In the kitchen, showing how to cut sandwiches in the least wasteful manner possible.”

Someone said, “And who is this lovely young lady?”

“Felix Limekiller,” she said.

“Ah, Mr. Limekiller! Here you are! You do not mind if I dance with this lovely young lady?”

“No, Sir, I don’t. Felix, this is

The music began again and in the second or so before it swelled up to shake the walls again Jack heard the words, “Llewellyn Gonzaga Me —” as the introduction dissolved into the dance: and they were off.

“See what I mean?” — Alex, into Jack’s ear. “Everywhere. At one time.”

“One does see what you mean.”

One did indeed. Did one’s car find itself tipped almost on its side in the famous Breakbone Gorge, rvho was that suddenly appearing with a winch-equipped truck? Who else but the tireless figure of Llewellyn Gonzaga McBride, the Queen’s Chief Minister. Did an Indian, overwhelmed by piety and rum at the Feast of the Four Crowned Martyrs, give the well-known signs of adding via his own machete to the number of the martyrdom, who was that appearing from nowhere and, addressing el Indio in his own language, getting the machete away and tucking it under his own arm as though it had been an umbrella? Llewellyn Gonzaga McBride, the first (and so far the only) Chief Minister of British Hidalgo. Was who. Was who. Instances innumerable; and he’s probably also, right nowr,” said Alex, “in his office, working on the Budget.”

“Something almost theological about it.”

Make You Big and Strong, blared the record player.

“Something absolutely theological that this country even exists!” shouted Alex. His lips moved some more, but hearing him was now impossible. They shrugged; then, the two kitchen-women having come out to beam at “the funs,” he and Jack swept them up and danced away with them.