LITTLE NELL

It was late on a Tuesday evening and the world was at peace with itself as stars began to delicately puncture the fabric of the heavens. I had just turned off my smoking jacket and fluffed up my lardon filled pillow (one often gets hungry at night) when the phone gave a refined tinkle in a manner typical of all the electrical devices chez-moi.
'Have you got the book?' said a deep voice.
'Who is this,' I enquired, ' and why, pray tell, are you disturbing a good christian's solitude.'
'Never mind all that,' rumbled the voice like a coal lorry trundling over a helpless child, 'do you have a copy of 'The Old Curiosity Shop' handy?'
'Oh saints preserve us!' I cried, 'It's you, isn't it Mr. Myles?'
'I haven't the faintest idea what you're on about?' Said the voice suddenly becoming falsetto - nay castratto -in tone. 'Just open the shagging book and read the bit about Little Nell kicking the bucket!!'
'I can hear a rustle in the background there Mr. Myles,' I said fearfully, 'you're not wearing that damned mauve ladies garment again are you? The one with the excessive amounts of garniture and the whalebone bustle?'
'Just mind your own business and read me Little Nell's swansong you four eyed shit!!' Came the emphatic reply.

Franc Myles obsession with matters 18th and 19th century began with what many deemed a laudable interest in architecture of the same period. But the surfeit of fanlights and stucco cherubs quickly worked their dark magic on him - before anyone knew it he was dressed as the widow of Charles Dickens and running around demanding alms for orphans lost in a mining disaster.
Still who am I to judge?
'When I die, put me near something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.' I cooed softly into the receiver.
'PHWOARR!!' Growled Mr. Myles like a bear being presented with a king-sized honey-dipped trout. 'CWOORR! Alan, Alan, come over here and cop an earful of this!!'
The unmistakably manly sound of Alan Hayden's voice rasped in the background, 'Give me a frigging second! I'm still struggling to get this corset on!!' I heard him grunt.
Amen.