Sudden he’s sung, and away.
AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED
“I don’t like women,” said Richard of Brookline, and to prove it he sucked more violently upon a lavender lollipop.
Richard spoke with all the authority of one who has spent seven years living across the street from five fair ladies. One might mention that these seven years were his first spent anywhere, and that these fair but fearsome feminists ranged from six to sixteen. The locale was Brookline, and the time romantic summer—at this point my story begins.
Not long ago Richard wandered down the broad highway sucking upon his solitary lollipop, and wearing on his eyebrows the air of a world-weary capitalist. He did not offer to share his bounty with the ladies across the way, but did not object to having them watch him from their lollipopless porch. It was this haughty attitude that first made the Sleuth suspect him to be a woman hater.
And so the Sleuth set off upon his trail immediately, but Richard, like many a courtly gentleman, proved to be as diffident as he was bold.
“Why don’t you like women?” he was asked. And he replied:
“Because.”
“Because what?” the Sleuth persisted; whereupon Richard raised his eyebrows with an air of finality.
“Because I don’t,” he said.