The Mailwoman: Chapter VI

Ben Hansen

And so they staggered into their room, Hugh wondering why the porter
refused to take their bags as well as why they packed so much when
they were going to leave as soon as the letter had been delivered, and
Ben saying many things to the aforementioned porter in a loud voice
along the lines of "You do things like this here? What a country!"
"Shut up," Hugh muttered in a rare moment of table turning, but he
could barely even breathe under the small mountain of bags on his back
so the words went unheard.
"Wow! Do you know what they call bananas here?" Ben asked Hugh as he
tipped the sour-faced attendant who promptly dropped his liveried
trousers to give them the old brown-eye salute before waddling off.
"Bananas! What a country!"
"What are you talking about?" Hugh asked.
"This country! and what a country it is!"
"Could you possibly stop? You sound like a demented American tourist."
"That was the idea," Ben moped. But he stopped.

A short nap and a long lunch later, the protagonists pondered their next move.
"As I see it, we have one obvious step to make," said Ben in a pompous
Sherlock Holmes voice.
"And wha' would tha' 'un be, guvnor?" asked Hugh, who had chosen Tiny
Tim for the moment.
"Elementary, my dear..." Ben began, then eyed Hugh. "How would you
feel about changing your name to Hamill?" he asked, dropping the
accent.
"I'd be 'appier as 'Amilton, sah, why?"
"Because there's no decent way to reduce or expand any part of your
name to two syllables."
"There must bae, guvnor, give ih' a go."
"No. Could you give up the accent? If I don't get to have a voice, you
shouldn't either."
"Yeah, all right," replied Hugh, dropping the
cockney-slash-retarded-slash-unknown-Kadath-slash-god-only-knows-what-else
inflection. "Anyway, you were saying we have only one clear option?"
"Yes. We want to find where this person lives and deliver the letter, right?"
"Spoken like a pro."
"Well, why not look up where the person lives?"
"Because we don't know their name."
"You mean the one written on the front of this?" Ben asked, waving the
envelope meaningfully.
"Uh, yeah, all right. Why did whatsherface put the address on the
envelope when she was going to get it delivered?"
"Probably so the messenger boys would know who to give it to. Now,"
Ben said, beginning to bend his arm at the elbow, "Let's see who this
is bound for."