Tuesday, February the 13th, 2007

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Dobson's Chartreuse Weskit

In her book Neglected Classics Of Hysterical And Overwrought Prose, the scholar Constance Mufton mentions in passing “an out of print pamphlet by Dobson in which he gives a highly amusing account of his purchase of a chartreuse weskit”. This reference, buried in a footnote to a footnote to a footnote, long perplexed Dobsonists of various stripes, none of whom could identify with any confidence the pamphlet Mufton had in mind.

An alarming young Dobsonist named Ned Pondlife tracked down the aged scholar to a chalet perched on a flinty outcrop, and hammered at her door, intending to question her directly about the source of her assertion. Nowhere else is there any record of Dobson wearing, or even owning, a weskit, chartreuse or otherwise, and Pondlife thought that if he could solve this admittedly small mystery his reputation as a Dobsonist would be boosted. Alas, upon opening her chalet door, Constance Mufton took one look at the young upstart and fell into a swoon, a swoon that presaged a decline, a decline which had her carted off to a bewilderment home, a bewilderment home where she muttered and dribbled and chewed brazil nuts and sucked butterscotch and finally passed into the Realm Beyond Petty Earthly Cares. Indeed, Ned Pondlife's countenance was truly terrifying. On a blistering September day during his childhood, Pondlife had had the misfortune to be attacked by both a flock of starlings and a swarm of hornets, and although he was left with no physical scars, thereafter the horror of what he had undergone, on the lawn and at the mouth of the cave, in the September sunshine, in his little sailor's suit, aged six, could be seen on his face, all twitching and bonkers.

The ambitious young Dobsonist's next step was to consult an inventory of the out of print pamphleteer's wardrobe, if such a thing existed. He visited any number of libraries and academic institutions, clutching a bus pass, but wherever he went found he had to avert his gaze from frightened puppies which yapped at his approach, and his progress was thus accompanied by such a din that serious research became impossible.

Q—Why were there so many puppies in the vicinity of these libraries and seats of learning?

A—Because the puppies were the offspring of the guard dogs, left free to roam with impunity until they were old enough to join the elite corps of library hounds and do sentry duty in their turn.

Ned Pondlife was in danger of growing old and creaking before he discovered the truth about Dobson's chartreuse weskit. From time to time, he thought about diverting his attention elsewhere, by making a special study of Dobson's breakfasts, or of his failed thought-control experiments, his pin cushions and pencil sharpeners, the big flap when he became wedged in a crevasse, his correspondence with Ringo Starr, his lapsang souchong, his tin, his talc, even his encounter with the rancorous squeegee goblin. But not one of these projects could ever inspire him as thoroughly as the mystery of whether or not Dobson had bought a chartreuse weskit, and if he had, when and where he had worn it, and why. What was so maddening was that it just didn't seem like a piece of Dobsonian attire. And yet, until her late befuddlement, Constance Mufton had been one of the most assiduous of Dobson scholars, and her work was respected from Pointy Town to Mustard Parva and beyond. Surely she could not be mistaken?

But she was.