SUSPICION OF A VENDOR

                                   a parody by, S.J.Penn.

                                           -- 1 --


"I ask you to attend some pleasant soiree, place some yuletide fripperie in margrave
Zuchenhoot's pocket - and you speak of dangerous assignments?
You amaze me, young Rassendyll!"
I chose not to answer Von Kaiserscmarrn, much preferring the view from the window:
peasants in sloops four sheets to the wind shooting their loads up the river Main.
For, truth to tell, my thoughts were not of Mainz or of margraves but of a certain
fraulein in Baden-Baden for I had a cracker of my own to pull.
"Ach! I cannot believe my ears,"  the old man insisted, "Can zis possibly be young
Rudolph Rassendyll:  zer man who laughs at danger??!"
"I have changed,"  I answered shortly.
"You haf indeed,"  Kaiserschmarrn bristled, his monocle an irate beer-bottle top awink
with cold regard.
How could I tell him that devil-may-care cousin Rassendyll had married she of the 
buckled teeth and Emmenthal skin, my duck-kneed sackbutt-soprano cousin Sophie-Flavia,
and now ruled Ruritania, in my stead - what an altruist!   
What a test for any teatotaller!
With grim deliberation von Kaiserschmarrn  took a gold-green Cracker from a whole
boxful of the same and placed it menacingly on the desktop.  "You will consider zis
your last assignment," he growled.



                                  --sterl'