Tictocq awakes #35

French detective TikTok goes yachting.

TikTok Goes Yachting (35)

World-renowned French detective TikTok, like the egghead Ralph Waldo Emerson, had figuratively carved “Whim” on the lintel over his doorway that morning of Bastille Day in 2025. TikTok would go wherever whim took him as he set out from his flat on Rue Fondue for a cup of coffee at Café Délai. Whim suggested to TikTok’s consideration a desideration for an éclair to go with the coffee, and his feet obediently steered toward the pastry shop (‘pâtisserie’) ‘Aux Petits Fours’ (roughly ‘tasty pastry’) run by a Gascon from southwestern France by the name of Xébraq Quinque. A sign beside the door declared this to be the shop-owner’s (‘propriétaire’) name. TikTok long ago had translated this to “Zebra number five”, for as poor a latin scholar as TikTok was he recognized ‘quinque’ as ‘five’. TikTok and Zebra number five had never had a deep conversation over pastry but conducted their business by dumb-show, pantomime, and mutually unintelligible mumblings. You see, dear Reader, Xébraq was a wanted man, a Basque separatist from Spain who fled to Paris to escape the long arm of the tricorn-hatted Spanish police after he blew open a bank-vault and most of the bank with it in Bilbao. Like his fellow safe-cracker Butch Cassidy (who favored dynamite), Xébraq (who favored ‘plastique’ explosive) sometimes used more than was called for. The outcome was the same for both robbers, namely that the detonation scattered charred bank-notes all over creation. What TikTok took to be Xébraq’s unintelligible Gascon dialect was in truth Basque, a tongue related to none other on earth. [Editor’s query: is Basque the fossilized Ice Age language of cave-dwelling Cro Magnon wall-painters?] Comprehension was further stultified by a shoebrush-like mustache that Zebra number five grew to outwit Interpol’s facial-recognition software. The mustache would have excited the admiration of Nietzsche, the mad German philosopher [admittedly, all German philosophers are as mad as hatmakers breathing mercury fumes] after Nietzsche’s mind went off the rails and he forgot to trim his facial undergrowth weekly. TikTok was too polite to say it out loud but when faced with Zebra number five’s face-shrubbery a fallen angel whispered in TikTok’s ear “Ask him to buff your shoes with that growth on his upper lip.” TikTok never did.

TikTok paid up, tipped his beret to Zebra number five, and received in return a farewell in Basque, roughly “Xqtpyzq”.

“His Parisian accent is not coming along very fast” mused TikTok.

“It takes provincials like him a while to master it. I have been his customer for a good year but his pronunciation of ‘au revoir’ still sounds like gargling. Oh well, he can always train to be a mime.”

Secreting the tasty treats in pockets, TikTok wandered down the street to his café, and having been served with a cup of blackest coffee, TikTok surreptitiously fished a croissant out of one pocket and bolted down its buttery flaky goodness in a trice. It was followed by a draught of coffee and then a bite of half of an éclair. The fly in the ointment of TikTok’s breakfast was the off-taste of the sweetener in the filling. The cruelty of American tariffs was brought home to him and millions of other Parisians with austere substitutions of ersatz ingredients such as crystallized pineapple juice in place of cane sugar from Puerto Rico. What next? Would Parisians be driven to brew roasted chicory and acorns in place of Hawaiian and Puerto Rican coffees, the new forbidden fruits? The importation of coffee beans from Brazil, Central America, Turkey, and Ethiopia had doubled the price of France’s morning pick-me-up in cafés. At first there was murmuring and then there was grumbling. Barely out of tourists’ earshot Parisians whispered ‘Down with America’ (‘à bas l’Amérique’) to each other.

All the same, it was Bastille Day and a long weekend, so TikTok girded up his loins and made the best of a second-rate éclair as he reminded himself that there were policemen outside France’s cultural empire who had NO éclairs at all, good or indifferent. It was a sobering thought. As gratefully as the captain of H.M.S. Pinafore thanks God that “I am an Englishman”, TikTok thanked his horoscope that he was born in France, home of the éclair.

TikTok wiped his fingertips with a napkin, smoked a cigarette, and plotted out his day’s schedule. Like a seesaw his day pivoted upon the fulcrum of the noon parade through the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Élysées. There would be marching bands, army vehicles, floats, cheering, and so many tricolor flags hanging everywhere that spectators would be snow-blind or color-blind by late afternoon.

The heads of the city departments of police (‘gendarmes’) and firefighters (‘sapeurs et pompiers’) each year choose one employee from each department to take part in the parade and ride with the mounted Cuirassiers (armored cavalrymen), those spectacular centaurs in glittering breastplates and helmets dating to Napoleon’s Empire. The cavalry helmet inspired the design of early firefighter helmets, even though today’s Parisian fireman wears a helmet resembling a motorcyclist’s headgear with a face-shield. That face-shield had rendered good service to firemen in their January 2020 brouhaha with the police, a fracas kindled by a long-smoldering dispute with the city over firemen’s pay. Some firemen started the streetfight between the two departments by squirting lighter fluid on their own flame-proof jackets and setting fire to their jackets as proof of their right to higher pay for hazardous duty. Like firemen, policemen have a strong labor-union with its own demands for higher pay. That two unions were fistfighting in the street over pay was management’s dream come true. TikTok, as befitted his rank as a detective, had been in the rear ranks of the scuffle egging on younger cops to rain truncheon-blows on the greedy firemen stealing bread from police mouths. The covid lockdown came two months later and put the kibosh on the simmering antagonism between the rival departments.

TikTok was looking forward to his outing on horseback, even though it meant he would have to make nice with a goon from the fire department.

“Firemen should wear wheels on their ring fingers to keep their knuckles from scraping the pavement.” This is a sample of TikTok’s thoughts on the matter of firemen’s intelligence. It was tit for the tat of the firemen’s mantra that cops (‘flics’) should be paid in bananas.

TikTok rode an iron steed (the Métro) to the Cuirassiers’ staging area on Avenue Kléber, one of the wide spokes around the hub of the Arc de Triomphe. TikTok was put alongside the fire department’s chosen champion in the last rank of horsemen, both of them kitted out in dazzling breastplates (‘cuirasse’) and helmets, polished weekly with Brasso and Thompson’s silver polish since last year’s parade by lowly rookie flat-feet and fire-eaters, a hallowed tradition that builds character and morale in the polishers.

There was one discrepancy between TikTok’s outfit and his antagonist’s: their helmets. Whereas our detective wore an accurate replica of a helmet seen at Waterloo, his counterpart (Félix Dupont) proudly wore an antique fireman’s helmet as cumbersome as TikTok’s and much like it to the untrained eye. Spectators along the parade route would not notice the fire helmet’s difference, but police department protocol saw to it that TikTok was briefed on the helmet’s history.

As a band was tuning up its instruments with a few bars from ‘La Marseillaise’, TikTok and Félix mounted up, trading surly glances. Félix wasted no time in reopening wounds from the 2020 scuffle.

“I was told to expect the renowned detective TikTok, but I see they have sent an old retired meter-maid in his place. Let me see the pad of parking tickets you are going to stick under windshield wipers along the parade route.”

Félix had fired the powder-train of his own undoing. He had crossed verbal swords with TikTok, a man of many resources as the poet Homer describes wily Odysseus in The Odyssey.

“They told me to stifle my laughter at the sight of that chamberpot you are wearing on your head. From its ancient design I would say it was pilfered by your lowlife (‘sans-culotte’) ancestor, a restroom attendant at Versailles under the monarchy (‘ancien régime’). Am I right?”

“How nice of the city to transport you today on horseback. Your foot-arches must be as flat as crêpes (pancakes) with all the walking you do to hand out parking tickets. On the bright side, all that exercise may eventually cause your smooth brain to develop at least one convolution.”

To this insult TikTok countered with

“Some day you cretins (‘crétins’) will evolve thumbs. Pardon my pun, but thumbs are so handy for swinging through trees. You will wonder how you ever managed without them.”

To which Félix retorted

“Do you or does your boyfriend draw your mustache on with an eyebrow pencil? You look like the limey bloke David Niven.”

Félix had thrown down the gauntlet. TikTok glared at Félix’s spread-eagle handlebar mustache with waxed tips such as Kaiser Wilhelm sported back in the day.

“My second would call upon you in the morning to demand satisfaction, but so low is your pay-grade that you cannot afford to live within fifty kilometers of your fire-house in downtown Paris.

My second could not even find your domicile in your mean hamlet among haystacks and turnip fields.”

TikTok had struck a sensitive nerve and drawn blood by bringing up the old dispute over pay. Félix, though he was on horseback, told himself he could not take this insult lying down.

“On guard (‘En garde’), you blackguard.” [Mind that the “k” is silent in ‘blackguard’ which nearly rhymes with ‘braggart’.] With that warning Félix drew his sword from its sheath and brandished it like Dartagnan at TikTok.

Getting more than he bargained for (TikTok visualized the newspaper headline ‘Fireman skewers Cop’), our hero was briefly at a loss for words and a snappy comeback. The adage “Discretion is the better part of valor” urged flight. Just then TikTok heard the distress cry ‘Help’ (‘au secours’) from a passing Waymo driverless taxi. It was Paris Hilton being kidnapped by a rogue machine on four wheels. TikTok recalled the time her limousine had halted for him as he was thumbing a ride (‘il faisait de l’auto-stop’) on Broadway in San Antonio. At that encounter Paris had been flying to the city that she believed was named after her. She wanted to check hotel receipts for the current month, so she invited TikTok to accompany her on her private jet years ago. That evening the paparazzi at Le Bourget airport had photographed the disparate pair dismounting from the jet and splashed TikTok’s face all over the next editions of Paris Fishwrap, Le Figaro, Paris Match, etc. [The publicity had made TikTok a nine days wonder, about as long as Lady Jane Gray enjoyed being called your majesty and wearing a crown before her enemy, Bloody Queen Mary, wanted it back. But I digress.] TikTok’s reign as the [wait for it] talk of Paris did not end as badly as Queen Jane’s reign but merely fizzled out. But his gratitude to Paris Hilton would endure forever, like Keats’s grecian urn.

Shelving the slight to his narrow mustache, TikTok spurred his chestnut-colored mount in the direction of the Waymo and the screaming heiress. He would kill two birds with one stone. Félix was clearly contravening the law against dueling with swords in public places as Félix, with cavalry sabre raised high above his head, pursued TikTok, while the horseshoes of both steeds struck sparks on cobblestones. They began to close the distance between them and the Waymo’s dainty damsel (‘demoiselle’) in distress.

This was not the first wayward Waymo that had to be collared by gendarmes and written a ticket. Given how bad Paris drivers are [the midtown car-chase in the movie Ronin is nothing out of the quotidian], motorcycle cops in traffic-enforcement must carry extra insurance. TikTok and Félix brought back to life a scene that had not been enacted for a full century on Paris streets: a mounted chase.

Unbeknownst to the Waymo’s pursuers [and when you come to think about it to the pursued mindless Waymo], the Waymo’s GPS had been taken over by a drone, yet another mindless brainless machine and harbinger of our common future enslavement to electronic frankensteins. The captured Waymo was heading for the Chinese Consulate at number 5, Avenue George V [named for the English King George the Fifth], merely twelve doors down from the Four Seasons Hotel George V at number (‘numéro’) 31, where Paris Hilton goes for manicures. The tragedy of her abduction was that she had recently chipped a fingernail and was in need of repair. The glittered, broken nail would have to wait. In point of fact, mademoiselle Hilton had NOT been abducted. One of her minders had ordered a Waymo for the blond heiress and instructed its software to take Paris to the Hotel George V for a manicure. Paris had blithely entered the Waymo as a footman held open her door. She waited for a chauffeur to get in behind the steering wheel. None did, and the Waymo sped off, nonplussing its wealthy passenger, unaccustomed to collisions with the real world outside her bubble of handlers and fixers and servants. Paris had no idea what driving was, let alone full self-driving. When she flunked driver’s ed at her Swiss private school, she in pique bought the school and sold it to a cosmetology chain-store, cosmetology being her passion project.

The Waymo all but brushed the swinging wrought-iron grille gates of the Chinese Consulate as the gate’s electronic brain acknowledged the pass-code sent by the Waymo’s revolving cyclopean “eye” on its roof. The gate swung shut in time to exclude the pair of pursuers dressed as if for a costume ball at the Consulate.

TikTok had had a quarter of an hour in which to ponder his next move in this chess match with an irate fireman.

“Sheathe your sword, you imbecile (‘imbécile’)! We must rescue that woman. She pays more taxes in one hour than you will pay in your whole working life.” [then for payback TikTok added] “All the more so because you are paid so little.”

Félix gave TikTok a hurt look but sheathed the sabre. Inside the grille some extras from a James Bond film were hustling the distraught Paris from the Waymo into the Consulate. Paris’s last words within TikTok’s hearing were “My nail, TikTok, my nail!” It was time for fast thinking.

Before TikTok could process this input, a window on the Consulate’s second floor flew open and who should stick a brutishly ugly bald head outside but Jeff Bezos, a living breathing Bond-villain. Jeff and his fiançée had been ostracized and deported from Venice before they could even buy stickers reading ‘Venezia’ for their leather luggage [that cost more than this story’s author’s entire education at a cut-rate state university]. Jeff had been in a snit since this snub. He and the future Mrs. Bezos, in true Bond-villain style, fled back in a small submersible to their Bond-villain 400 meter yacht Koru where Jeff pondered his revenge. He had cheated the gondolier of the negotiated outrageous fee for oaring the couple hither and thither all day, but gouging one Venetian was not enough payback. Jeff would make all of Europe’s upper crust suffer. And what better way than to put Paris Hilton into orbit aboard a Blue Origin rocket-ship and hold her for a ransom of half her family’s wealth? Hilton hotels all over Europe would be in turmoil, the jetset glitterati would have nowhere to rest their heads wearied by late hours in discothèques. Local economies would suffer and locals would cry out to the Hiltons to pay the ransom. Jeff justified the plot on scientific grounds. It would test the effect of weightlessness on, well, weightlessness, by which Jeff meant the hollow space inside Paris’s head. Jeff’s drone had redirected the Waymo to the Chinese Consulate, which Jeff in flawless Mandarin bought in a quickie call to Xi Jin Ping that went like this.

“Ping, ni hao ma?” (‘How are you, Ping?’)

“Hen hao, Je. Xie, xie.” (‘Very well, Jeff. Thanks for asking.’)

“Wo yao ni de dian.” (‘I want {to buy} your consulate.’)

“Hao. Shi ni de.” (‘Fine. It’s yours.’)

Then two clicks as the pair hung up. Xi Jin Ping did not have to discuss payment; Jeff was “good for it”. Calls like this filled Jeff’s day aboard Koru while his significant other worked on her tan and fingernails. Unbeknownst to Jeff, she also stayed in touch with her tax attorney, her prenuptial agreement attorney, her divorce attorney, and an attorney retained for threatening the other attorneys. As stipulated in her prenuptial agreement, she would get free manicures and pedicures at the Hotel George V for the rest of her life and could retire her well-worn orange-stick. Koru spent most of its days at sea outside the fifteen mile international limit from shore. Business deals on the high seas are not cramped by all the pesky laws on land. Now to get back to TikTok.

The ugly head shouting from the second story window barked

“You are just the people I need. This building is on fire! Go round to the tradesmen’s side-door.”

Jeff had not mistaken TikTok and Félix for firemen; Jeff was taking hostages. As the two public servants rushed into the Consulate they were hoodwinked, hooded, and zip-tie-bound with their hands behind their backs by goons, just as had been done to Paris. Through his hood TikTok heard the swoosh-swoosh of rotors as a helicopter landed atop the building. TikTok wondered why he smelled no smoke from a burning building. Yet again TikTok’s innate trust in others had not been rewarded.

When Jeff designed Koru he saw to it that the yacht would have not only a submersible escape-boat but also a helicopter and helipad as well as many amenities catering to paranoia, amenities such as zero-decibel soundproofing, a virtual private network (VPN) with satellite uplink and CIA-grade data-encryption, rooms impenetrable to electronic surveillance and swept each hour for listening devices by a trusted lieutenant, 360 degree radar and sonar, the whole bag of tricks.

Jeff and the goons hustled TikTok, Félix and Paris, hobbled as they were, to the consulate’s roof. The hooded male pair blamed each other for their predicament like a young couple who just bought a microwave on the cheap at an everything-must-go fire sale only to get home and find it did not work. Mutual recriminations. Inside her hood Paris was blubbering “My nail, my nail!”

Félix piped up with

“If it were not for your insults, TikTok, I would be in the parade now, pelted with flowers by adoring women and hearing ‘bravo’ from men envious of my dash, élan, and brio.”

“You are delusional, mon ami Félix. You imagine yourself to be Michelangelo’s statue of David, but the reality is nearer to … [Editor’s note: propriety forbids me to print TikTok’s similitude, but one hint is that you can find this porcelain sculpture at the Pompidou Center, the world’s ugliest art gallery for the world’s ugliest art. The objet d’art in question is a byword and a hiss among the beaux arts coterie who date the death of art somewhere betwixt Louis Daguerre’s invention of the photo and the 1913 Armory Show in New York.]

The chopper’s destination was Koru riding at anchor in the middle of the Channel outside French territorial waters. The plan: to blackmail France’s president Emmanuel Macaroon by airing his soiled laundry in the newspapers. The stories would be [wait for it, please] trumped up lies, but the public outcry would be deafening if Jeff threatened to mail TikTok and Félix to him one piece at a time as mafia kidnappers did to J. Paul Getty’s grandson. Jeff’s ransom demand (‘quid pro quo’ to you latinists) was the exclusive right to put an American college graduate as a cleaner-attendant in every French restroom, the salary to be borne by the French taxpayer and a finder’s fee to be paid to Jeff for each warm body wearing a

mortar-board. Jeff saw this arrangement as selfless public service both to America (lower unemployment) and to France (cleaner restrooms especially at filling stations plus income-tax collected on their wages). The college kids would benefit from ‘graduate study abroad’ and would ‘build character’ while ‘gaining experience in the workaday world’. It was a win all round. There were no flies on Jeff.

Landed aboard Koru, TikTok, Félix, and Paris were unhooded and snapshotted. Then the lads’ portrait in the uniform of cuirassiers and the lady’s portrait in a gray tea-gown by Dior were flashed to President Macaroon with a text message stating Jeff’s demand and his dark promise of retribution via the dismemberment of the hapless Frenchmen and the sequestration of the eye-candy in orbit via a Blue Origin rocket.

At the Palais Élysée the message came as a thunderclap. Which one(s) of Macaroon’s deep secrets would Jeff reveal? Macaroon would be dead meat electorally among Rightists if it leaked out that he secretly grilled Hebrew National Ballpark Frankfurters (all beef & kosher too) on a ‘barbie’ in his backyard each 4^th of July because he lusted for their meaty, juicy, mouth-watering all-American flavor. He would be a dead man walking if French leftists learned that Macaroon, when a mere provincial mayor, down-voted a historical marker to commemorate Karl Marx’s one night stay in 1871 at what is now the last remaining Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge in Europe. Macaroon was in a box canyon and caved in to Jeff’s extortion. TikTok and Félix breathed a sigh of relief which all the same did not halt Paris’s blubbering about her pinkie-nail, the pea under seven eider-down mattresses.

But not everything in Jeff’s scheme went like clockwork. The captain of Koru misread the navigation chart’s seabed depth and as a result paid out a good 100 yards too much chain when he dropped anchor for the night. That domino fell over and (2^nd domino) let Koru drift barely into English territorial waters. That event was captured by (3^rd domino) a spy satellite that alerted the (4^th domino) coast-guard customs cutter HMS Indefatigable to intercept Koru, board her, search her, and take her as a ‘prize vessel’ captured on the high seas. With its paintball gun for warning shots, Indefatigable put a quart can of Sherwin Williams ‘weatherbeater’ brand paint across the bow of Koru at a range of 100 yards. The cutter hailed the yacht with a bullhorn “Prepare to be boarded.”

Aboard Indefatigable ensign Cecil Smythe-Hamhawks peered through binoculars (the Royal Navy reluctantly updated from telescoping brass telescopes) and said to able-bodied seaman Jones steering the customs cutter

“Blimey, that bloody tub is flying the French dishrag off her stern. I ought to bloody well ram her.”

But Smythe-Hamhawks came alongside Koru and mounted the Sumatran teak staircase lowered for him and Jones. Koru was thrice as long as Indefatigable and its crew of 40 was twice the cutter’s crew of 20. Had the ensign carried out his fantasy of ramming Koru he might have had to explain to the Admiralty why his cutter lay at the bottom of the English Channel, so flimsy are the ‘tin cans’ of today. At the top of the staircase Jeff Bezos was beaming while deck stewards stood at attention bearing a platter of champagne flutes and an iced, sweating bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé 1965 swaddled in a gleaming white starched napkin as an ice-breaker and peace-offering to the frosty looking sea-cop. For the occasion Jeff had traded a pink Lacoste shirt (with alligator trademark) knitted from cashmere, the lounge-wear chosen from 400 options by his “dresser”, for a blindingly white yachtsman’s blazer with brass buttons in order to level the playing field between Jeff and Smythe-Hamhawks. A jaunty nautical cap, as in George V’s photo with the Czar at the 1908 Fleet Review, hid Jeff’s scalp.

“Seaman Jones, take this bottle in charge as evidence. Note that he attempted to influence an officer in the Royal Customs and to evade payment of customs duties.”

“Aye, Aye, sir. Duly noted.”

Then addressing Jeff the ensign glowered

“Your ship, Frenchy, is my prize. Set your course for Portsmouth. If you try anything, Jones will shoot you.

From a distance of 200 meters sternward, TikTok and Félix looked on disappointedly as the holy grail of French vintages was seized by the ordinary seaman’s lunchhooks. Not in the least taken aback by the ensign’s discourtesy, Jeff popped out his satellite phone and punched “Prince of Wales” on speed-dial. At Buckingham Palace the next king of England saw the name “Bezos” flash on his phone and answered it with gusto forthwith. He hoped it would be another party invitation, one with funny hats maybe.

“Jeff, so good of you to call.”

“Your highness, I am in a spot of trouble with your Navy.”

“Oh? Can I help? I may have some pull with the Admiralty. Let me chat with the chap.”

Jeff handed the phone to Smythe-Hamhawks with the words

“It’s the Prince of Wales for you, sir.”

The ensign took the phone and glowered at Jeff, like a headmaster about to administer a thrashing to a schoolboy with a rattan cane. A plummy and unmistakably aristocratic voice came over the phone to the ear canals and ear drums of the frightened and astonished ensign. Instantaneous role reversal. The ensign sensed that the cane was now in Jeff’s hand. The incorporeal but real voice said

“I apologise, ensign, for sticking my nose into a situation that I am certain you are handling with absolute correctness, but you know how wives are, and I shall never hear the end of it if Mister Bezos spends a night in the brig at Portsmouth. Kate and Jeff are besties” [editor’s note: best friends] “and love to golf together. Is there anything I can do to pour oil on the troubled waters here? I will gladly call your admiral. You are out of Portsmouth so that would be Admiral Coalscuttle, am I right?

As soon as Smythe-Hamhawks was convinced that he was not being pranked, his naval training brought his heels together with a click and straightened his spine almost audibly. He would grovel.

“Your highness, in this fog [there was none] I did not recognize your wife’s friend and under no circumstances will he spend tonight anywhere that he does not choose to spend it. I am certain that his incursion into British waters was unintentional. With your permission, your highness, I will render all aid necessary to help him on his way.”

“Splendid, ensign. I shall visit Portsmouth this year and would like to shake your hand if you are in port then. Might I speak to Mister Bezos?”

“Jeff, you are all set. Give our friend a ‘full Nelson’.”

“Of course, your highness. A thousand thanks for your help.”

They rang off. The ensign looked sheepishly at Jeff and bawled at ordinary seaman Jones

“Restore the gentleman’s property to him. Chop chop.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Seaman Jones silently repeated his mantra: “Order, counter-order, disorder.”

In the Royal Navy a ‘full Nelson’ is not a wrestling hold but either (a) a broadside of 50 cannons as from Lord Nelson’s ship-of-the-line HMS Victory (now docked at Portsmouth) or (b) a full night of drinking. Prince William meant (b).

“Please keep the champagne, ensign. I invite you and your officers to join me and miss Hilton for dinner at the captain’s table on deck. Your crewmen are welcome to join mine below deck.”

Jeff snapped his fingers to summon the wine steward (‘sommelier’) & chief chef Ange Heurtebise with his secretly mutinous sous-chefs. Bubbly was ordered for the captain’s table at which Paris would sit. Chimay Grande Reserve ale (brewed by Belgian trappist monks) would be poured for the crews of both vessels as well as TikTok and Félix. The dishes served at the captain’s table were not ones found on the menu of his majesty’s ships at sea. For this Smythe-Hamhawks offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Tonight aboard Koru he would taste pheasant under glass, smoked Scottish salmon, Cornish game hens, and between courses a medley of delicacies such as lamb chops with mint sauce, oysters on the half shell, prawns with cocktail sauce, and prosciutto ham. The coarser palates below deck would have to make do with prime rib of beef, Mulligatawny soup, beef Stroganoff, shepherd’s pie, Irish stew, potatoes au gratin, and other such truck. The trappist ale was followed by an even darker ale brewed by Benedictine friars which in its turn was followed by a blond ale brewed by Franciscan monks in Flanders. There was no grumbling from TikTok and Félix, cheated though they were of wine. They had missed the parade down the Champs Élysées but had not been dismembered slowly, and now they were the dinner-guests of a billionaire. Not a bad day’s work. Sandwiched between Jeff and the ensign in his spiffing uniform at the captain’s table with its candles, solid Sterling silver place settings, and a centerpiece of fresh flowers costing as much as two weeks of TikTok’s pay, Paris Hilton regained her composure and did not mention her damaged pinkie-nail once during dinner. A glass of Pouilly-Fuissé put the finishing touch on her good mood. She complimented her maturity as if the suppression of her desire to draw attention to herself by whining to everyone was a sacrifice equal to Lord Nelson’s loss of one eye and one hand ‘for England’ in naval combat.

Jeff got some googoo-eyed looks from Paris during the

sea-turtle soup course. Mollified, he would call Macaroon tomorrow and apologize. Paris Hilton cast her spell over Jeff, just as Geneviève de Brabant standing on the ramparts of Paris-Lutèce and wearing a stunning wimple by Chanel bewitched Attila the Hungarian in 451 A.D. when the Hun threatened to carry all the cork-screws in Paris off to Buda Pest and ignite a waiter-uprising in cafés if he was not voted ‘most likely to scourge’ by the Paris town fathers. Mrs. Bezos was in Paris doing what billionaires’ wives do best. After two weeks of marriage to Jeff she could not listen again to his rags-to-riches backstory about growing up poor on a ranch outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. In her stead, poor Paris would have to listen to Jeff’s poor-boy Horatio Alger childhood tale as his eyes glistened with maudlin tears of self-pity. When Jeff turned on the waterworks and wept, Paris put her golden goddess arm around the sobber’s neck and patted his back with the words

“You poor boy.”

[Will billionaires never shut up about their hardships?]

Below deck, TikTok and Félix were starting to warm to these limey sea-dogs and even to each other. The sailors from Indefatigable were toasting the Americano crew of Koru with ‘stoops’, long glass tubes holding an imperial quart, a Britishy thing found in pubs and Oxford dining halls. The Yanks returned the compliment by chuggalugging pint cans of Budweiser Lite and toasting the Royal Navy by singing “Rule Britannia”. Both crews got toasted in both senses. The Frenchmen goggled at the Anglo-American capacity for ale (a frothy broth of barley, hops, brewer’s yeast) to the point of forgiving the fracases of lager-lout British football-fans with wineskin-toting French fans. Boys will be boys.

“You know, TikTok, I was only teasing you about your mustache. I did not mean to be cruel.” [This was the ale speaking.]

“My dear Félix, my rude crack about your helmet was meant only to twit you.” [Same thing.]

[Editor’s note: the hoary witticism “Your mom wears combat boots” does not compute in 2025, now that super-models wear them.]

“You gendarmes are not all bad.”

“Some of you smoke-eaters are fine fellows.”

A pause ensued...Then with quizzical looks they asked each other

“Can you tell me what in blazes we were fighting about?”

[Fade-out to strains of the ‘Communist International’ song]

Photo by davisuko on Unsplash

Photo by davisuko on Unsplash

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