Page 260 - The Grotesque Children's Book

“And she's, she's disturbing my, my -- help me out here. My oyster bed.”
“Your oyster bed?”
Francesco made a little pantomime of fornication. “My seashell. The maker of pearls.”
“N-not following.”
“Because her name means 'white-round, white-head,' you know. Round like a pearl. So
should she be the Pearl or the Seashell?”
“Aha! I understand whom you mean now. Pick either symbol for her. The Pearl or the
Seashell.”
“The Seashell! Good. The Seashell, she is disturbed by the presence of the Swan.
Because, aha, watch this now, because of the Swan's kicking her big clumsy webbed feet in the
Pond of Bliss and, and making all those honking sounds so that the Pearl she can't sleep in the
Oyster Bed. How am I doing?”
Zaccario didn’t feel it would improve his relations with the Duke if he told him how he
was doing. So, instead, he continued, “Are you suggesting, sire, you no longer want the Swan in
your Pond?”
“That's exactly what I'm suggesting, yes! Only I, I am no, I am no...Huntsman. I can't
myself, you understand, just shoot the Swan.”
“No, Sire.”
“So....” A pause followed. “Yes, and....?”
“I'm thinking,” said the alchemist.
“You take your time.”
“I don't know any Huntsmen directly myself,” the alchemist said, carefully. “I don't work
with, er, reeds and the knucklebones of rats.”
“Knucklebones of rats?”
“Round, hard objects. Which if blown with sufficient force through a hollow reed --”
“Oh, you mean, like bullets!”
“Sh-sh, sire!”
Francesco clasped his hands over his mouth. “Knucklebones of rats. That's delightful!
Do you mean...now this is occurring to me for the first time, Zaccario....When you devious
alchemists get together and talk about things like knucklebones and rats and eyes of goat and leg
of salamander, are you really referring to ordinary things like bullets and guns?”
“Yes, that's right. Eyes of goat could mean a jewel of some sort.”
“A jewel?”

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