An Evening's Innocent Amusement

My gloomy cousin, Pavonious Wormwood, was here this evening and we enjoyed a few drinks out of the old skull. Mr. Von Vineyard provided the refreshments, and Claretta took some brilliant sketches of Cousin Wormwood.

Wormwood was a little stiff and formal at first. He isn't accustomed to having his portrait taken. He thought he ought to be calm and dignified like the paintings at Headlong Hall. He's glad he was, though, because Mr. Eavesdrop got his hands on it somehow and gave it over to the lithographers. The caption at the bottom reads "ms.Julius JANE FREAL Mike Bull..ahh..I flagrancy home jeane lieutenant fromage r.Bullcock?" I don't know what that means, but you never can tell with common satirists, can you?

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You must remember, when you look at these sketches, that Wormwood suffers from consumption and is quite close to a skeleton himself, especially with his disposition. You see he never smiles. He's determined no one should know the difference when he's dead. In this picture, we tried out the newest thing in wine glasses - the glass with a Hydrobottle spout.

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Wormwood was starting to warm to the subject by this time and had decided to taste all the wines. As symbolic of the blending of the flavors of the two wines he is trying, we got another skull from Mr. Cranium and placed it in the backgroud, just as the daintier wine is in the background of the flavors dancing over Wormwood's tongue. You see how the vapor of the fine wine - one of the few things that lights the misery of his existence - transforms Wormwood's ghastly face into something bordering on the angelic - almost infantile in its innocent enjoyment, its forgetting of self in a thing of greater beauty.

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My scull has looked better and Wormwood never looked worse.

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We decided this wine was too magenta and transparent for a skull. It looked so much more appealing in a glass.

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An attempt to portray Wormwood's spectral sensations as he smelled the wine.

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Wormwood gravely toasting my ancestor.

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Mr. Cranium says my ancestor was clearly an egotist. "It is apparent from the size of his head."

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Mr. Von Vineyard was lavish.

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A tribute to wine, the muse of many men.

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The skull had gotten a bit of grape lodged in its teeth. We were really sorry Mr. Eavesdrop got his hands on this one.

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I tried to dissuade Wormwood from including my pistol in the sketch as it might disturb Claretta - he can be such a tease sometimes. He is rather addicted to calling me "Werther", just to torment me. (The skull in the glass is what I might have been. At least, I hope I would have been immortalized like my namesake has been.) The ghostly skull by his side is the looming spirit of death.

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Wormwood wanted to share confidences with my ancestor - they are kindred souls.

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He thought they would have been very dear friends in life and commiserated beautifully on mutual tragedy.

Wormwood was getting somewhat intoxicated and thought the skull needed a drink to hearten him up.

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Softly humming, my Cousin shut his eyes and mistook the skull for his pussy-cat.

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It was getting rather late, and Wormwood was looking somewhat haggard.

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To make a grand conclusion to the festivities, Claretta attempted to portray the dark fancies which forced themselves upon poor Wormwood as he laid his head down upon the table.