Mrs. Phossy and the Cats of Pfaff

[Maxwell Grantly]

(Note: my apologies for the lack of pictures for the second part of this story: I no longer own Tabby the cat and the sim of Pfaffenthal is no longer present within Second Life. Therefore, any reader is invited to create their own interpretation of an accompanying images to this story and post it, as a reply, below.)

Harry turned towards the door and, with heart a-pounding and arms a-waving. He ran to the exit and bellowed out to Mrs. Phossy, who was standing there, “Your cat’s over-eaten!”

Perhaps the moment was confused by the mayhem of the instant or perhaps the call was garbled by the stupidity of those present but Mrs. Phossy tried to make sense of the mangled noise that she heard and she repeated, in her uncertainty, “What? My cat's over-heating?”

“Indeed,” repeated Flash Harry, “but don’t you worry - I’ll save the day!”

With that, he rushed into the adjacent gin palace and sprinted up to the bar. Along the counter were a row of glass tumblers, each filled to the brim with shots of neat gin.

“The cat’s over-heating!” he repeated to the bar’s bystanders, with a brief shout.

You may or may not realise this but gin is a liquid, just like water, Gin is colourless, just like water. Gin is transparent, just like water. In fact, at first glance a tumbler of gin might easily be confused with a tumbler of water, especially if you had as little intellect as Flash Harry. You may not need reminding, he had enough intelligence to pass through the eye of a needle and still have room for the accompanying camel.

Despite the confused looks of all those around him, Harry swept his arms around the glasses and gathered all of the gin tumblers up in one motion. Then, he dashed out into the street and he returned to the smouldering wood store.

“Leave it to me!” Harry bellowed to Mrs. Phossy, “I’ll save the day!”

With that, he threw the entire contents of the tumblers through the open doors and into the smoking interior, just as the other occupants of the gin palace stepped out into the street to see what all the commotion was about

Although gin is a liquid (like water), gin is colourless (like water), gin is transparent (like water) gin is actually highly inflammable (most unlike water.) As soon as the gin touched the tongues of the smouldering wood, the wood ignited with a gigantic whoosh and the whole wood store interior bellowed into a mass of flames.

This also happened to be the very instant that Mr. Lenz, the wood store owner, arrived at the scene. Instantly, he removed a spotted handkerchief from his pocket and, with a trembling hand, he began to mop his brow.

“This is all very serious,” he nervously muttered, beneath his breath. “The woodwork store was merely a cover for my true business. I fear the consequences may be most dire.”

Mrs. Phossy, Flash Harry and the others turned to face the new arrival, as Mr Lenz continued with his anxious confession.

“It’s rather late to admit this,” continued Mr. Lenz, with beads of perspiration erupting from his brow, like an overflowing bathtub, “but the store was being used to conceal an illegal firework-storing venture, in the attic. We have but a few seconds and then this town shall be no more. I’m afraid that there is nothing that we can do.”

The crowd stood there, open-mouthed and gazed blindly in panic. In an instant, Flash Harry turned and re-entered the burning building. Once inside, he took a deep breath and hollowed out with all of his might.

“The place is full of fireworks and we have just seconds. If they all burn at once, this town will be obliterated!”

Tabby looked up, from the floor of the wood store. He didn’t want the building to burn. He didn’t want the town to burn. But worse of all, he didn’t want his mistress (the kind and caring Mrs Phossy) to burn. He knew exactly what he should do.

All at once, Tabby dashed off through the flaming timbers and towards the staircase. He bounded up the stairs, with his claws protruding in excitement, leaving a trail of sparks in his wake. He arrived in the attic, just as the flames were beginning to lick their way through the timbers of the floor. Tabby saw a series of ten adjacent crates, with the words ‘Danger – Fireworks!” banded across the outside of each and he leapt to the top of the first box, where a finger of blue paper protruded from the lid. With one stroke he drew his claws across the blue paper and then he leapt to the second crate, where he repeated the process. One by one, in just ten seconds, he had leapt to each crate in turn and ignited the contents of each, with a single swipe of his claws. Finally, he turned and began to race down the attic stairs.

Meanwhile Flash Harry had collapsed upon the floor. Unbeknown to Tabby, when Flash Harry had entered the building, just a few seconds earlier, he had taken one deep breath and inhaled a lung full of smoke, as he had bellowed out his warning. The unconscious body of Flash Harry lay exactly where he had fallen, at the very entrance to the wood store. Without a moment to lose, Tabby took one enormous bound and landed upon the shoulders of the delirious man. Tabby extracted his claw and squeezed as hard as he could. There was a single scream and Flash Harry jumped up in pain and darted straight out of the burning building, with Tabby the cat still embedded into his shoulders. At that moment, the first crate of fireworks exploded. There was one-second pause and then the second crate of fireworks exploded. One-by-one, in one-second intervals, the ten crates of fireworks exploded in sequence.

Had the fireworks all exploded together, at once, the effect would have been sufficient to demolish the building, the whole street and (very likely) the town too. However, by exploding one at a time, each explosion was only one tenth as powerful as the effect of the combination discharging together. The result was that the combination was merely a crescendo of ten smaller explosions in succession instead of one mammoth devastating fireball.

Flash Harry fell into the arms of one of the match-making girls, just as the town’s fire brigade arrived at the scene, with their bells a-ringing. Harry was delirious with pain and he was still concussed, due to the effects of the gin and smoke fumes.

“Will you marry me?” he fumbled out in his delirious confusion.

Carried away with the excitement of the moment, with the cheers of the crowd and with the firemen’s bell still sounding in the air (perhaps mistaken in the minds of those present for the sound of a wedding bell) the reply was an instant, “Yes!” The crowd gave another hearty cheer, punctuated by the sound of a click as a handcuff snapped around the wrists of Mr. Lenz. Mrs. Phossy looked down at her cat and smiled and Flash Harry slipped a silver guinea into her hand.

“You’ve found me my perfect darling and I shall forever be grateful,” he managed to exclaim, through the grimace of pain and the fog of concussion.

“Today has indeed been a most eventful day,” she murmured in reply “and I think that match-making must be the most rewarding job ever!”

She was, of course, referring to the coupling of Flash Harry and the matchmaking girl and, from that moment on, Mrs. Phossy never did return to the monotony of working at the Bryant & May match-making factory. Instead she went on to perform many other unbelievable acts of matchmaking between the town’s handsome men and other workers from the Bryant and May factory. Each and every time she found the perfect match, she was rewarded by a silver guinea. A silver guinea is not a lot but you can certainly buy a great deal of fish with a single guinea and that is exactly what she did. Tabby loved fish!

You’ll never believe her many episodes of matchmaking!

You won’t believe the incredible story of how Tabby ate a slice of festering cheese and developed an acute case of squeaky wind that resulted in the saving of Mr. Goosling’s cart full of geese eggs. (This also resulted in the most romantic pairing of Mr. Gossling and one of the match girls.)

You would only swoon if you heard the remarkable story of how Tabby got his head caught in the town hall railings, which led to the local bricklayer, Mr. Brickett, acquiring a contract to replace all the railings in the town with brick walls. (This also resulted in another romantic pairing of Mr. Brickett and another matchmaker girl.)

I doubt whether you would ever comprehend how an incident involving Tabby falling down a disused water well resulted in him acquiring a set of glow-in-the dark teeth or how this incident led to the rescue of the local undertaker’s business. (This too, as you might guess, led to another pairing: Mr Woodybox, the undertaker, and another match girl.)

One-by-one each of the ladies who worked at Bryant & May’s found their perfect true love and the population of the town of Pfaff began to soar. The streets of the town began to fill with the sounds of childhood laughter, happy families and contented couples. All, that is, except for one single person: Mrs. Phossy. She never did pair herself with a man, for she had already found her true perfect love: the loyal affection of her dearest kitten: Tabby.

Mrs. Phossy went on to thrive in the fellowship of her friends and the over-whelming affection of her pet kitten and, as for Tabby (with fish purchased from all those silver guineas) he never had it so good!

Aside: "But, what about the remnants of the match-making compound, left upon Tabby's claws?" you might ask?

It would be correct to state that no one ever found out that it was actually Tabby who had started the fire at Mr. Lenz's wood (and illegal firework) store or how, later the following year, it was Tabby who had contributed to the popularity (and eventual demise) of the annual Fire-Fighters' and Pfaff Insurers' Joint Fancy-Dress Ball. But that's another story and you don't really want me to go into that, do you?