The Great Leonard Pelly

Leonard looked to the ceiling like a thoughtful goat, chewing its cud. But, do goats chew cud? No matter—if Leonard were a goat, he would, just to throw the whole affair into disarray. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Naturalist, this old goat just won't play by your rules.

His gray hair overlapped his collar and that preposterous brooch winked like an impudent little boy. Leonard tilted his spectacled eyes back to the rest of us, granting us the unasked-for privilege of his attention once more. His eyeglasses like filled bowls of thick soup, he opened his mouth. His tongue, a congealed pudding, explored a molar, while Leonard fished for the right words. Although, in his case, who knew what "right" would presume to mean? "Better than last year," he said quietly. He hoped someone would ask him to repeat himself. That was one trap I wouldn't set foot in. I heard perfectly well the first time, thank you all the same. My good sense was gone—why was I even here, with this bejeweled loaf?—but my hearing was intact.

Mrs. Finn lifted her dime eyes to Leonard, an expression of confusion loosening the lines around her mouth. "What did you say, young man?"

“I said, my fine and delicate woman, that the wine is marginally better than the fancy tap water we had to contend with at last year's reunion." And he tossed that marginally better wine into the toothy canyon that doubled as his mouth.

My fingers twitched. How they tingled for their opportunity to twine themselves in that oversized napkin collar of the Great Leonard Pelly, and twist and pull, wringing the bad manners, the petulant ways, right out of him. He speared a butter pat and laid it carefully—oh, he's a bricklayer now!—onto his one hundredth roll of the evening, and worked it whole into his mouth, which required the assistance of his right hand.