User:Judgement/UnBooks:The Pickwick Papers
The following are the papers of a one Mr. Pickwick, and describe in excruciating detail - for indeed, there is no other kind of detail - the goings-on of his self-styled club, also known as "Pickwick". Therefore, the minutes, or "papers" of this congregation, having been founded by and centering around the aforementioned Mr. Pickwick, are to be henceforth referred to as "The Pickwick Papers"; while admittedly unoriginal, this name seemed to be the most prudent to use at the time, and the author was - as he seemed to perpetually be - on a deadline.
April 8th, 1842[edit | edit source]
Upon heavy consideration and debating upon the subject of my pondering, I have come to the conclusion that it is prudent for me to form a self-styled congregation for gentlemen who have no problems gathering under the name of another man - that man, of course, being myself. One must wonder how I have come to such a conclusion, or indeed, how I even came to ponder and scrutinize such a subject. The answer lies in the past - about a week's worth of past, to be exact.
It was on April Fool's Day when the idea first came into my head - for indeed, an idea cannot appear anywhere else on the body, save of course on the off-chance that a man (for a man is more inclined to thinking and pondering) has written an idea on his hand, so that he may not forget it in the future - while I was taking my morning stroll with my good friend and colleague, Mr. Coswell. Mr. Coswell is a lawyer, and as a result, he is a rather uptight man. I don't mean to be considered crude, but if Mr. Coswell were to accidentally sit on a lump of coal while stoking his fire, he would wind up with a diamond in his trousers in a relatively short period of time, so tight are the muscles of his rear. Again, the aforementioned metaphor is just that, and is not to be taken at all seriously - for I do not wish to have random passers-by sticking bits of coal down Mr. Coswell's trousers.
In any case, Mr. Coswell and I were taking our morning stroll down Cantwell Street in London when we spied a meeting of the East London Ladies Tea Club going on within the Canterbury Tea Shop. While we were both well aware that the Tea Club was intended for ladies, we had often seen our mutual acquaintance Mr. Cordlow at the meetings. Mr. Cordlow, however, was a man of questionable desires - indeed, it had been spoken among many of our colleagues that Mr. Cordlow was a man who, while enjoying the company of women, more primally desired people of more, shall I say, masculine nature. However, Mr. Cordlow was woefully - although the word "woefully" is used in quite liberal terms - absent from this particular meeting, and Mr. Coswell and I decided to drop in on the ladies to perhaps drink tea and discuss the lastest gossip (for indeed, what else could women conceivably talk about?). As Mr. Coswell and I approached the door,however, we spied a sign that dampened our spirits considerably. It read as follows:
"THE EAST LONDON LADIES TEA CLUB IS SPECIFICALLY RESERVED FOR THOSE OF A FEMININE NATURE. THOSE OF A MASCULINE NATURE - REFERRED TO BY MOST LAYMEN AS "MEN" OR "MALES" - ARE HEREBY PROHIBITED FROM ENTERING THIS PREMISES DURING THE MEETINGS OF THE ELLTC, WHICH IS FROM 4 PM TO 7PM EVERY WEEKDAY."
After we had recovered from our initial amazement that someone had been able to fit all of that on a relatively small door sign, Mr. Coswell and I suddenly understood why Mr. Cordlow had been allowed to drink with the ladies.