Story for the Day: Bricks

While Bartleby is a fully fledged chemist and has an arsenal of alchemical fire at his disposal, he will forever cherish is most rudimentary weapon: sandstone bricks, brought with him from Marridon, for the purposes of building an emergency shelf should he need it and throwing at the crew whenever they should annoy him, which unfortunately for Bartleby is much of the time:


A fulmination of applause emanated, faces flizzened and smiles reigned amongst the crewmemebers now gathering round. Everyone was delighted with him, nobody mocking or sneering at his attempts to match Magochiro’s stride, and he was just grown used to the idea that he might enjoy his time aboard the Myrellenos when something suddenly whirred by his head. It flew through the small crowd in front of him, whizzed through the wedge in his head, and fell to the deck, where it slid down the gangplank and into the water. He turned, and from the corner of his eye, he saw something in the near distance, obscured by the sudden convenience of a brick, which came hurtling toward the crowd with precision and speed. He drew his sword and flicked it outward, to deflect the brick as it careened toward him, but a downward swipe from the captain’s hand drew it toward Rannig, whereupon it caromed off his chest and chimbled into a plume of dust.

                Rannig looked down at his shirt. “Oh,” was all he said, brushing the brick dust with the back of his hand.

                Peppone gave the giant a curious look. “You didn’t feel that at all, did you?”

                The glint in Rannig’s eye glittered. “No.”

                “Does anything hurt you?”

                 Rannig considered this. “Well, sometimes my feelin’s get hurt,” he decided. “And bug bites kinda hurt, after I scratch ‘em from bein’ so itchy and all.” He thrust his hand in front of Peppone’s face, caught something in his palm, and crushed it without giving any thought to it. “But bricks don’t hurt much,” said he, wiping the dust from his hands, “’specially not how Bartleby throws ‘em.”

                Peppone turned and saw a vicious glunch pouting at him from the hatch. It was frothing, quavering, and piled beneath a rumpled velvet hat. “The old man is throwing those bricks?”

                “Of course I’m throwing those bricks!” Bartleby cried, leaping up from the hatch, unfurling his flout from under his hat. “And you deserve them lodged between your teeth if you can make such a bobbery hiddie-giddie at this time of the night!”

                He took another small brick piece from is pocket and tossed it at the crew, but Danaco swiped it from the air as it sailed toward them. He held the vitrified lump in his hand and examined it with an arched brow. “Did not I tell you that brick-throwing was only to be done in self-defense?”

                “This is being done in self-defense,” Bartleby heatedly contended. “I am defending my ears from your rinkum-rankum, or whateveritis you’re doing up here.”

                “Put the fire out, aul’jin,” said Brogan, waving Bartleby down. “We’re only playin’ a game.

                “Hang your games! I want silence on this deck. It is very late and I am very busy at my science, and you and your ragtag ragabashery are keeping me from making my conclusions in peace.”

                “But we ain’t even standeen ovah yah library, professah,” said Mr Malley. “We’re awll the way on the othah side o’ the deck.”

                “Sound travels, Mr Malley,” said Bartleby, his alae flaring, his nosehairs straining to escape their owner and strangle the boatswain. “While you’re busy thumping and hallooing over here, I can hear it perfectly well over there. And, my dear boatswain, you forget that the hatch which leads to my chambers is a grate, not a solid door, though I have asked the captain fifty times to replace it with something that is better able to keep out the sound.”

                “If I did that, my old friend, you should never able to listen to our conversations about you,” Danaco observed.

                Bartleby snurled. “I have an earhorn. I can put the listening end to the ceiling and hear you talk about games and ship gnomes and whathaveyou every well.”

                “Then having a grate for the hatch is saving you the trouble of fetching your listening piece every time you want to ear Feiza talk about how many women he has thought of speaking to.”

                “Jus’ a few, cap’n!” said Feiza, in a panic. “Us only thought of ever speakin’ to a few—and only speakin’ loike.”

                “Ha! You should not be speaking to anybody,” Bartleby huffed. “Your shipwreck of an accent is enough to make children cry and bating dogs whimpering to be shot. If you want to speak to a woman, find yourself a seamstress and ask her to sew your lips closed. You would be more desirable for female company if you pretended to be mute all the rest of your life.”

                “Really, sor?” said Feiza, with a hopeful aspect.

                “Probably. The sound of glass being ground between someone’s teeth is pleasanter than hearing you breathe in your accent.”

                “Come now, Bartleby,” said the captain, in a plaintive tone. “Feiza knows well enough not to solder his lips together.”

                “Aye, us do, sor, us do,” said Feiza unconvincingly.

                “Feiza has no need of announcing himself to anybody. The jingling of his pockets precedes him wherever he goes, and the silvery sounds of winnings questionably earned attracts more partners to the perch than a conversation with him could ever do.”

                Feiza gave his pockets a joss and waited. No women came, but a magpie swollocked by and tried to roost on him.

                “As for brick privileges,” said the captain, returning the brick he had caught to Bartleby, “I do believe I only allowed you the one, and here you have thrown three.”

                “Fff! I may throw as many as I like,” Bartleby huffed. “The one you allowed me was specifically for a brick thrown at Panza, for his hurting my feelings the other day.”

                “Which other day?” said Panza dryly.

                “Any one of them, you gluteal crevice. You and your scoundel’s melodeon always offend me.”

                “It’s a concertina.”

                “The barn cousin of the melodeon, played by ruffians and beggars in the streets, along with the barrel organ and the manualist feeper.”

                “But ye can make music with yer hands, Bartleby,” said Rannig. “Ye showed me.”

                The old man’s eyes blazed. “I did it for scientific purposes,” he viciously contended, “not to cheat the marketmen out of their wages over a simple display of manual frictional properties.”

                “But ye played a whole song and all.”

                The crew began to laugh, and behind the simpers and guffaws was an old man who was very much regretting his coming to the main deck at all and thought how much better it would have been had he pelted everybody with bricks from the hatch.