(a lengthy period of building acquaintance follows)

AMERICAN: Who’s that man over there, with the scar running to his ear?
ENGLISH: That’s Major Carlisle. He’ll tell you he was a champion Prussian scar-duellist, but he really just worked as an apprentice in a hotel kitchen. The head chef chopped one of his jowls off because be put the custard in the bowl upside-down.
AMERICAN: Great Scott… wait, which hotel did he work at? I’m having my dinner here tonight; I don’t want to be served a stuffed face!
ENGLISH: Don’t worry – they wouldn’t have the bloody cheek. No, it’s French food here – this new style they call l’amalgame de l’héraldique et la cuisine. Lions rampant on a bed of sautéed greens; that sort of thing.

(the wheels of social intercourse are further greased, until-)

MRS PASSERBY: Besides, I think I’d make a fine mother.
VICAR BYSTANDER: (flabbergasted) What! You’re the opposite of a fine mother! You’re composed of pure anti-mater! If you came into contact with a mother, there’d be a violent reaction!
AMERICAN: (sotto voce) Hey now, that’s hardly a way for a preacher to talk to a lady!
ENGLISH: (sotted voce) Nooo, they’re old friends. They love to wind each other up.
AMERICAN: (contemplative pause) Does that mean… they’re screwing?
ENGLISH: I gather you’re still getting to the grips with the English idiomatic.
AMERICAN: I don’t think I have one of those in my room – just the Transatlantic telegraph and some French letters.

(and so evening turns inexorably to night)

AMERICAN: Well, I’d best hit the sack, or come morning, I won’t be able to hit the bricks and my secretary will hit the roof.
ENGLISH: What a hoot. I’ll turn in, too – I’ve got a paper comparing the relative merits of oil of shale and boiled snails to present tomorrow. Toora!
AMERICAN: So long!

(both stand, shake hands and proceed full into opposite bar-room doors)

In any case, there are rich veins of monster-themed hospitality to be tapped, so the wife and I put ourselves to pondering: what might take up Hunchbax’s mantle? Zombie’s Diner, a folksy, homely dive? Wolfman’s Late-Night Early-Morning Café, specialising in music so live, only a silver bullet could stop it? Mr Hyde’s Transformative Delicatessen, scientifically separating the grave and morbid rump roasts from the secret pleasures of the spiced sausages? But then, the answer struck us like a Penang lawyer.

The Invisible Man’s Dining Room & Cabaret Revue!

It’s so simple, yet so perfect! Guests are ushered to their seats by the visible staff – so as not to start on too high a note, you know – but once all are in place, the host himself takes the stage – an animate evening suit, as dapper as can be seen. He welcomes the crowd and introduces the talent of the night – perhaps beginning with the invisible can-can girls, ruffled skirts lifting to reveal high-kicking stockings and rare glimpses of nothing at all. Or a conjurer – Antonio the Indiscernible – who saws an empty box in half, through a technique learned from a Sufi mystic. Then, perhaps, the tantalising Miss Perdu could perform her invisible striptease – a skimpy set of lingerie grinds around a high stool, then flutters to the ground as the music and audience swell. The host mops his invisible brow – my! How saucy! They’ll shut us down if we’re not careful! As a final encore, Antonio returns to the stage, and with a wave of his cape, makes his beautiful assistant appear! (It’s all down with talcum powder and coloured lights, you know.)

Brilliant, am I right? Just the thing to put the east back on the map, or at least on the compass. We’ll show those amateurs at The Floorshow From The Black Lagoon how to run a nightclub. I’d say we’re set until the south unleashes The Kraken’s Tavern, completing the cardinal directions and devouring the kingdoms of men. Calamari jokes strictly prohibited.

Frances attributed her guest’s obvious discomfort to their mysterious genteman-visitor’s knee-breeches and resumed her knitting. Georgiana, meanwhile, wrung the note that Inspector Campbell had slipped her, which revealed that by her characteristically manly tie-knot he recognised her as in fact being Thomas Clavell, serial strangler, previously thought to be at large in France. This was an awkward situation, and she began to seriously regret asking the Inspector home for tea.

(Originally posted on the 21st of June, ‘06)