2
A SLICE OF LIFE
The conversation in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest had drifted round to the subject of the Arts: and somebody asked if that film-serial, The Vicissitudes of Vera, which they were showing down at the Bijou Dream, was worth seeing.
'It's very good,' said Miss Postlethwaite, our courteous and efficient barmaid, who is a prominent first-nighter. 'It's about this mad professor who gets this girl into his toils and tries to turn her into a lobster.'
'Tries to turn her into a lobster?' echoed we, surprised.
'Yes, sir. Into a lobster. It seems he collected thousands and thousands of lobsters and mashed them up and boiled down the juice from their glands and was just going to inject it into this Vera Dalrymple's spinal column when Jack Frobisher broke into the house and stopped him.'
'Why did he do that?'
'Because he didn't want the girl he loved to be turned into a lobster.'
'What we mean,' said we, 'is why did the professor want to turn the girl into a lobster?'
'He had a grudge against her.'