[littlemanpoet]

"'Course not, old rag...-" Falco puffed on his pipe "-...lady. I'd like to hear this new tale of his."

"I'll rag you, little scoundrel," Ruthven winked with a sly grin.

Eodwine turned to his foster daughter. "What do you say, Gudryn, do you think we could marry the tale of Gob and Twiddle to Saeryn's game?"

Gudryn tilted her head and thought about it, a small smile on her lips spreading until it was a wide grin. "That would be fun!"

Well then," said Eodwine, "I will begin since it was my idea.

"Gob was a slouchy man, given to roundness of girth, for he liked his vittles. He had a ladle nose and a sloped forehead with a tuft of blonde baby hair atop it, soft and fine since the day he was born. Otherwise he had a bald pate on top, but he wore a halo of flowing, thin hair wore over his ears.

"People thought him an inch or two shy of a yard, if you take my meaning, because he cared little to prove himself. But they were wrong in that, and would have known it, had they looked closely at the spark in his baby blue eyes, most times half hidden by his lazy lids.

"Gob was a hedge trimmer by trade, which meant that he had a lot of free time on his hands, which was just as well to him, because then he could jaunt about town with his best friend Twiddle.

"Twiddle, now, was thin as thin. He was all hooks and knobs. He had a beak for a nose, a head as round from the side as a coin, and big ears which he hid, or I should say, tried to hide, under his wide brimmed hat. He liked his vittles as much as did Gob, but his pulse was quick and he burned up his food fast as the wind.

"Twiddle was an tree fruit picker by trade, which meant that he didn't work much either, and was ready to romp with his best friend Gob at the drop of a hat, which was often seeing as Twiddle's hat was so large for his head it kept falling off, revealing a matted head of thin, greasy hair.

"Twiddle's Edain Apple was more out than in, and when he swallowed it ducked, scooped, and lifted like a bucket in a well.

"Twiddle didn't sleep much. He didn't seem to need it. Even though he was likely to go down long after sundown, he was up well before sunrise most days. So he got in the habot if mimicking a cock crow. He'd put his whole body into it. He'd stand on a little hillock just outside his hovel, and bend backwards with the breath he took, and he'd flap his arms like wings and yell "woop! woop! cockawoop!" People wondered what cock he heard that he did it like that, but that's the way he did it.

"So that's Gob and Twiddle. How'd they get those names? No doubt their mums gave them better ones when they were born, but nobody remembers those names. Well Gob liked to talk while he ate, but he always forgot to swallow first, so everything he said came out sounding like "gob". Twiddle was the only one who could understand him. Twiddle's name is easier to figure out, because he was always working his thumbs with all the nervous energy he had.

"So everybody always thought of Gob and Twiddle as one thing, them being such close friends, so that after a while people dropped the 'and' from between the two and just talked of them as GobTwiddle. Everybody knew what was meant.

"Now for the tale. I'll tell you of the time GobTwiddle were pressed into a gang of ruffians.

"But hold, it's time for me to take a swig. All that talking has dried my throat."

Eodwine took a long draught from his mead, and placed down the mug with a big sigh, then looked around.

"So, shall I continue this tale, or does someone else want to take it up now?"