Now they wanted him to finish the story. “You talk so funny,” Samantha told him, “but I don’t care. What happened then?”
“I think I've heard this story before,” Seymour said. “But it was awful different. Doesn’t she meet a prince or something?”
“Or something,” Archie agreed. “What it is, actually, when Saturnalia gets to this bash, it turns out the cat that’s tossing it is an account exec for this WASP ad agency and he’s rolling in long green. Also, he’s like very Gregory Pecker-ish, you know, olive-oil suave and full of horn-rimmed egghead talk and dances like the whole Bolshoi wrapped up in one package delivered by Arthur Murray. So, innocent chick that she is, Saturnalia goes all vaginal fluttery over this cat. He reads her right, and first thing you know he’s got her on the second floor of his pad in the hay with her slippers off. Downstairs the combo is plagiarizing Tschaikovsky. Upstairs Saturnalia and the huckster are triple-timing a tango to the music with horizontal variations picked up from the Ellis brothers, Havelock and Albert. Well, the War of 1812 draws to a close and the combo retreats from Moscow tail-dragging the French horn and finally everybody plugs their ears with their fingers and the cannon goes off and so does the huckster and so does Saturnalia—all in one boffo orgiastic crescendo with choreography by Busby Berkeley and incidental climax written in by Norman Mailer.
“ ‘Phew!' hulls the huckster.
“ ‘Phew!’ echoes Saturnalia.
“And just as they’re ‘phewing’ in chorus, this Big Ben bongs out the first bong of midnight. The chick panics. She has this identity problem, see? She doesn’t want the still-huffing huckster—who really should cut down on his smoking—should see her as she really is before the faggot-mother turns her into a Playboy centerspread. So Saturnalia grabs her girdle on the fly and makes tracks. At that, she barely makes it and has to hitch the garbage truck home. Which is kind of a bumpy ride ’cause it's in first all the way since the Mickey Mouse can’t reach the stick-shift.
“Meanwhile, back at the palace-pad, Huckster-Huffer gloms onto a sneaker Saturnalia left behind when she split. Now, as it happenstances, this Mad. Ave. cat has a fetish for track shoes. Like he’s always skulking around locker rooms with his proboscis instep-high. So now he gets one whiff of Saturnalia’s foot-holder and it’s like love at first sniff. He’s got to have her, but he doesn’t even know her label. Still, he’s a cat who moves fast.
“He ting-a-lings a Sherlock right away and puts him on the scent. Well, this bloodhound, name of Ian Phlegming—not his real name, but he changed it to that legally so’s to pull in the literary trade—-gets right on the case. He takes the sneaker and tours the subways, trying to match it up. Gets his hand stepped on bloody for three days, but still doesn’t find the size seven, triple-A chick-foot.
“Finally Phlegming smartens up and puts an ad in the Times saying as how theire’s an oodle of boodle waiting for the chick with the matching foot. Immediately his orifice is filled with corns and calluses. The podiatric aroma becomes so bad he has to pay off the Board of Health inspector. All alone, he’s starting a city-wide epidemic of athlete's foot. And he has to bill the huckster an extra thou just for antiseptic toe-powder.
“Still they come. Chorines and concubines, chamber-maids and chippies, housewives and hustlers, secretaries and sizzling sirens, money-hungry femmes from all walks of life—you should pardon the pun—bare-sole and hobble-heel their way into his office hoping they'll be able to fill Saturnalia’s sneaker. But none of them can. Bootless cries of protest, but they’re footloose one and all.
“Finally, Saturnalia’s two stepsisters and stepmother step up for a fitting. So it shouldn’t be a total loss, they bring Saturnalia along to polish their footwear while they're playing footsie with the Sherlock. Well, needless to syllablize, the stepfolk are out of step. But Private Fuzz is right on the ball of the foot and latches onto Saturnalia’s ankle. Maybe if he looks up, he wouldn’t bother, but this case has his neck permanently bent floorward, so its all toes to him. Before anybody can squawk, he’s got Saturnalia’s dog in a half-nelson and he’s putting the sneaker on it. Needless to say, it’s a perfect fit. Well, it's like the Irish Sweeps for concave-chested; cross-eyed, hook-nosed, litttle Saturnalia. But—”
Archie broke off the story in acknowledgment of Howard and Dixie re-entering the room. “We've been talking over the situation, Mr. Jones, and--” Howard began.
“Finish the story! Finish the story!" the children interrupted. “Finish the story!” they clamored demandingly.
“Now, children, you mustn’t pester Mr. Jones,” Dixie admonished them.
“And besides, it’s time for you to go back to bed,” Howard added sternly.
“First he has to finish the story!" they wailed. “It’s not fair!” Seymour added as Samantha contrived to squeeze one large tear down her cheek.
Howard and Dixie looked at Archie helplessly.
“All right,” he sighed. “I’ll finish the story. I was almost to the end, anyway.”
“Goodie! Goodie!" The children clapped their hands.
“Okay.” Archie took a deep breath and continued. “So when Saturnalia takes the fit, her stepsisters and stepmother turn pool-table-colored with envy. So much so that they’re like a new minority group all by themselves. But all their yowling can’t change the legit. Phlegming’s solved the case, and he hauls Saturnalia off to the adman’s pad to collect his fee.
“Well, the huckster takes one look at the merchandise and allows as like the dick must have latched onto the wrong half of the commercial. ‘You got the before part,’ he tells Phlegming. ‘Take it back and bring me the after!’ Which remark makes Saturnalia rinse her tear ducts, a wail-washing causing her to look doubly doggy.
“ ‘Beauty,’ she sobs, ‘is in the orb of the beholder!’
“‘Ich nicht beholden to nein man!’ The exec shows his true ethnic.
“ ‘But you hay-made me,’ she cries, ‘robbed the pure from out my body!’
“ ‘I musta been crooked!’ comes the wrinkle—nosing reply.
“ ‘But you did it! And now you gotta marry me so we can bed-bounce happily ever after!’
“ ‘You don’t quit buggin’ me, baby, I’m gonna eat you all up!’ Huff-Huckster gnashed bicuspids menacingly.
“ ‘Stick to the script!’ the private retina admonishes. ‘That’s a different story. And besides, the censors ’d blue-pencil it out.’
“ ‘Would you wed an oink like that?’ ignoble noble adman asks.
“ ‘What diff? It ain’t like you’re picking a mattress-mistress. So it’s minimum mate, but a living washday detergent when it comes to housework. Like bred to the profession, you know? A whiz-broom, a dusting delight, a moppin’ pippin’, scrubs the eggs an’ scrambles the floors, bakes the bed and cleans under the bread, washes waffles and whips up windows-—all this, an’ she makes chicken soup besides. So be smart. Marry the mutt. You’ll pick up a side-dish for glamor while she does the heavy work.’
“Well, to make an interminable story chopped, the adman finally agrees. There’s a hitch or three when Saturnalia’s stepmother mother-suffers why couldn’t he be a doctor? and one of her stepsisters puts down his palace ’cause it isn’t a split-level and besides it’s on the west side of town, and the other stepsister pulls down her genealogical charts and trumps the catered affair with the fact that the groom is one-quarter Sephardic on his maternal grandmother’s side. But despite the spite, Saturnalia marries her chintz charming and—” Archie paused for dramatic effect.