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The Adventures of
Sunblock Hose
and
Doctor Whacko

The world's fiercest and fore-armed
concentric detective and his real big
puppet pal by A. Conman Doll
(pay no attention to the man behind the screen).

The London cab-horse is a very particular fellow. When walking at a leisurely pace, it will, under almost all circumstances, refrain from stepping on a fallen tree limb, a burning campfire, or a human body. It was this fact that Sunblock Hose was explaining to me as I lay helpless in the odorous muck coating the cobblestones of Laurenbacall Gardens. It seemed a rather inopportune time for a lesson in equine behaviour, I must admit.

"OH, POOR WHACKO!" Hose resumed his shouting. "WHAT CRUEL FATE HAS CAUSED THIS CAB TO STRIKE A POOR WORM LIKE YOU! HOW AWFUL I WAS TO SELFISHLY EXPECT YOU TO CROSS THE STREET BY YOURSELF! THE E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUP OF MY FANS, THE HUNS OF THE INTERSNIT, WILL SURELY CRITICIZE MY BEHAVIOUR FOR THIS ONE!!!! OH, WICKED PROVIDENCE! OH, BLIGHTED POTATOES!"

The cab-horse in question shook his large brown head over me, as if urging me to get out of his way, and the driver of the hansom climbed down to see what damage had been done to the hapless pedestrian laying before his cab.

"Whot has happened here!" the false-bearded cabman demanded as he came around to the front of the cab.

"Your horse has crushed in my friends ribs, and he will surely die!" Sunblock Hose moaned.

"Here now, he looks fine enough to me, except for being covered in stinkin' mud," the cabman disagreed. "I've been driving me cab seven years now without a word of complaint! I don't leave survivors or witnesses, especially none as healthy looking as your friend here."

"Oh, but his chest! Listen to him wheeze!" Hose glared at me, and I agreeably began to wheeze.

"You're lyin' and I'll prove you're lyin'," the cabman said and bent over to rip my shirt open and expose my undamaged chest. As he did so, however, Sunblock Hose snapped handcuffs on his wrists.

"Whacko, let me introduce you to Justsayin Nope, the murderer of Knocknock J. Whosethere."

As the manacled Nope sprang upward, his head collided with Hose's and Justsayin Nope's nose became a faucet of blood, hot from the left nostril and cold from the right.

"I've got a nasal aneurism!" Nope cried out. "No prison will hold me long!"

"No, but this will," Hose replied and clamped a steel clothespin on Nope's nose. "I have tried to talk Mrs. Hudsucker into adopting this pattern for her laundry."

Inspector Lestadt arrived on the scene, having heard all the shouting, and Sunblock Hose placed his captured quarry in the Scutland Yardman's hands.

"You may have to write a whole novel and attach it to this case before anyone will understand it, Whacko," he told me. "Make up whatever you want."

"Cowboys and Mormons?" I asked hopefully.

"Just give me proper credit," Sunblock Hose replied. "I'm tired of that vampire Lestadt sucking up all the glory."

"Ouyay arehay ahay igbay erkjay," I quoted. "Andhey ouyay ancay

itewray ouryay ownhay amnday ookbay."

AND SO ENDS THE FIRST TALE OF SUNBLOCK HOSE AND DOCTOR WHACKO.
BE HERE NEXT TIME (WHENEVER THAT IS) FOR THE NEXT THRILLING ADVENTURE!

(Originally presented on the Baker Street list on July 2, 1998.)