Free Nowhere Near Milkwood by Rhys Hughes Page B

everything at once to all who were present. It hung there by its ears and twitched its nose.
    A Mad March Hare.
     
     

3: Those Wonderful Words
     
    As the TALL STORY is the second grandest pub in the universe, a fuller description of its layout and facilities may not be out of place here. (The grandest pub of all is the one that awaits the loyal Beamish drinker on the other side of the Pearly Gates, where auburn haired houris pour pint after creamy pint and where traditional folk sessions take place every night; Guinness and Murphy’s drinkers go straight to Hell.)
    The TALL STORY then, is a rather drab and chilly building on the outside; the windows are like glazed eyes and the walls sport a spider web of hopeless cracks. Once inside, however, the traveller is astonished by the warmth and vitality that suffuses the aged bar and even older lounge. The cedar wood beams that hold up the sagging roof are scored and pitted with the marks of a million foreheads and the bottles and stools that nestle behind and before the bar are scored and pitted with the marks of a million... well, foreheads.
    The floor of this remarkable establishment, however, is constructed of a truly unusual substance. In old Norse legends, it is told of a ship called Naglfar that will sail at the end of the world and is made entirely out of toenails. You may imagine anxious relatives of some recently mangled Viking taking due care to remove his toenails before he breathes his last – in an effort to delay the building of the ship and thus the end of the world. This is absolutely true.
    The floor of the TALL STORY is not made out of toenails, but something far more offensive. It is made out of unnecessary words. All the words that are spoken for no good reason end up on this floor. That is why the floor keeps expanding toward the roof and why more and more drinkers keep striking their heads on those cedar wood beams – one day the floor will touch the ceiling.
    This partly explains why Hywel winces whenever someone says something which contains more words than it should. If Harold the Barrel or Billy Belay ever cry over their jackstraws “Look here, see,” or “I’ll be there now in a minute,” Hywel cringes and hides his face. Both the “see” and the “now” spin out of their ungainly mouths, like shooting stars, and add their bulk to their brothers and sisters that lie trampled before them. It really is appalling.
    To discourage customers such as Harold and Billy, tyrannical Hywel keeps a rather heavy reminder behind the counter. This reminder is made of oak and is tipped with iron. It is about four feet long.
    When Harold the Barrel and Billy Belay are not playing jackstraws in some dark corner, they are usually arguing with each other about which of them has had the more incredible life. They are both committed eccentrics. Harold is convinced that he can fly; sometimes he will stand on his chair and leap off, flapping his arms furiously. Billy is no less modest. He claims that he is a ghost and will often attempt to prove his point by walking into the pub without opening the door. Failure in both cases does not seem to deter them.
    Other regulars are equally weird and wonderful. There is Madame Ligeia, the half-Gypsy mystic who lives in a tie-dyed caravan and who can only foretell the past – never the future. She is passionately jealous of rivals and once threw a fellow psychic bodily out of the tavern. She explains her brooding hatred of her magical colleagues simply by saying: “Too many sayers spoil the sooth.”
    Even more menacing is Dr Karl Mondaugen, the mad scientist of Munich. He is a cryptozoologist by profession but his hobbies include inventing bizarre and terrible devices the purpose of which eludes everybody, including himself. With his wild hair and little round glasses he certainly looks the part. He sometimes sits at the far end of the lounge, right in front of the low stage which is used every Tuesday night for lengthy