The Incorrigible Mr Ridgwater: Part Deux

Act V

Scene i
Snyffe-Harrington: Why yes, yes I am.
Mr Ridgwater: Lying!?
Snyffe-Harrington: Indeed. Quite.
Mr Ridgwater: You, Nigel, you my dearest, most august and venerable friend would stoop to such infamy? If sweet Gertrude, the feminine portion of your own parental tandem could hear you now! Her ears would wither away, her soul languishing upon the horrid nature of your prevaricative ignominy!
Scene ii
Snyffe-Harrington: Come now, come now, come now, dear Ridgwater! Need I present to your ebullient attention a certain incident involving a red-breasted parakeet, a waistcoat, calipers, four pheasant's eggs, and one particularly unfortunate hedgehog? Were not you, after you had been caught dangling from the oak outside of Brighton
Pavilion with a physician's stethoscope wrapped firmly around the obliquitous section of your lower limb, prone to your own tergiversation? I have it on the supreme authority that you most definitely were!

Act VI

Scene i
Ridgwater: Now I hardly see how the injudicious indiscretions of my youth could even compare to your...
Snyffe-Harrington: Dear Ridgwater! You were three-score and twain if you were a fortnight!
Ridgwater: Be that as it may, I cannot for the life of me fathom why a respected, indeed a treasured agent of the church such as Shropshire's own Nigel Snyffe-Harrington would even conceive of such trickery in regard to the animative state of our Matriarch and Queen!
Scene ii
Snyffe-Harrington: 'twas a joke! I assure you, only that and nothing more!
Ridgwater: A joke?!

Act VII

Scene i
Snyffe-Harrington: A joke, yes.
Ridgwater: I must admit that I fail completely to see the jocose quality in such injurious raillery!
[Snyffe-Harrington chuckles]
Ridgwater: [increasingly distressed]: No, no, no, no, no! There is not a dram of drollery in this jest, not even the tiniest, the most minuscule or infinitesimal jot!
[Snyffe-Harrington guffaws heartily]
Ridgwater: It is you, Snyffe-Harrington, who has failed so dismally at badinage! The queen? In her final slumber? In immortal repose, tended by cherubim and seraphim? Calling upon the saints Edward and George--as easily as you and I call upon our colleagues at the Honarium Society--and supping upon nectar and ambrosia? Such heavenly delights, I fear, must elude her yet. Dead? Indeed!
Scene ii
Door-Knocker: Knock. Knock. Knock.

Act VIII

Scene i
Ridgwater: [calling down] Yes? What is it? Come up immediately!
[A servant arrives on the escalator]
Servant: A message, sir, from the palace!
Ridgwater: Pertaining to what, man!?
Servant: Perhaps you should read it yourself sir. While I, of course a lowly and humble servant, would never succumb to the temptation of reading your most private missives, I have been assured by the messenger that the information contained within is of a most...sensitive nature.
Ridgwater: Sensitive? What are you jabbering about? Such imprecise mouths on the help these days! What a pitiful state our ancient tongue will be in if we all begin to spew forth such grammatical refuse! Hand it here.
[The message changes hands]
Scene ii
Ridgwater: [after a quick scan] O, Hammurabi's elephant!
Snyffe-Harrington: What is it?
Ridgwater: By Diocletian's sandal!
Snyffe-Harrington: Ridgwater, what in the world is it about?!
Ridgwater: Sweet Nero's forelock!
Snyffe-Harrington: Ridgwater!
Ridgwater: The Queen, Nigel, she's...

To Be Continued...