The Adventures of Tim Laughingstock. Five. Before Judge Flugle.

The barkeep at the Boogle Hollow Inn was well-known and well-liked, so when he called for the Constable to take Tim into custody, it happened in the blink of an eye. Tim was hustled off to the court chambers of the Honorable Quentin Q. Flugle, an elderly judge who had let his hobby of collecting exotic headgear turn into a bizarre obsession. Judge Flugle wore a green fez with a gold tassel when the late night hearing began. A panel of twelve jurors was fetched from the Oddball Guild, the members of which stayed up all night throwing parchment airplanes out the second story window at passersby. They also liked to drop pokes filled with cobwebs on the heads of unsuspecting strollers -- and since cobwebs are so light, they always included a large rock in the sack before dropping it out the window. Their contention was that cobwebs never hurt anyone, no matter how many concussed bodies lay on the pavement in front of their Guild Hall. They enjoyed late night jury duty, since it gave them the chance to collect bundles of cobwebs from Flugle’s ancient and undusted chambers.  

Tim was brought before the Judge and the charges were read by the bailiff:  “Disorderly conduct unbecoming a patron of the taproom. Possession of lumdiddles without a license. Underage origami. Overage licorice beer drinking. Suspicion of sassafras. And the willful murder of one Mudge Mudgley, late of 23 Point Taken Street, in the township of Boogle Hollow, by the administering of lumdiddles.”

While the charges were being read Judge Flugle changed into a purple turban with a long ostrich feather sticking out of it. He glared at Tim while adjusting the turban to keep it from falling over his eyes.

“How do you plead?” he barked at Tim. “Guilty or really guilty?”

“But your judgeship I had nothing to do with that man’s predicament . . . “

At this point Mudgley’s widow began howling “Oh, how can I ever live without my beloved Mudgie! He was my sole support, and us with sixteen children and ten cats!” (She had seen the large bag of gold that Tim was clutching when he was brought in.)

Judge Flugle threw gravel around the room to restore decorum. Long ago he had used a gavel to restore order in his chambers, but he found that throwing gravel was more fun.

“Quiet, everyone!” he roared. Pulling off his turban, he quickly donned a yellow beret with a red pompom on top.

Meanwhile some of the jury began winding up cobwebs from the corners of the room, and others began surreptitiously shooting onlookers with dried roddenberries blown through hollow reeds.

“Ouch!” cried a woman who had come in the hopes of seeing the Judge put on a sun bonnet, “I think I just been bit by a lumdiddle!”

“What?” bellowed the Judge. “Have you brought those poisonous beasts into my chambers, you villain!” He threw an entire crock full of gravel at Tim, who had the presence of mind to duck just in time. The pot broke on the floor, scattering gravel everywhere.

“Your judgeship” Tim cried out, “they are all safely bottled up back at the Inn! I had no hand, none at all, in that poor man’s demise. Nobody forced him to eat that pickled lumdiddle. He did it for no reason at all, except he must be a fool.”

“My Mudgie a fool?” screamed his widow, as she beat off the bailiff to come up to face the Judge. “He was the wisest man since the willow trees started to weep! This village would not be the same if it hadn’t been for him . . “

“Yea” yelled a juror, his hair whitened with cobwebs. “There’d still be some Old Camel’s Breath for the rest of us to drink!”   

Since the Judge had no more gravel, having thrown his pot of it at Tim, he took off his beret to fling at the impudent juror. It missed him by a rod. He quickly put on a red and white striped beanie.

“Clear the chambers! Clear the chambers!” he screamed in a high and hoarse voice. “I won’t stand for any more hutsut like this! Bailiff, throw everyone out immediately!”

The bailiff and his assistants hustled everyone, including Tim, out onto the street, then banged the door shut in their faces. Resisting the urge to knock and demand sentencing, Tim made his way back to the Inn, where the barkeep welcomed him affably.

“I’ve just come for my things -- I’ll get out right away” Tim said warily.

“No hurry, sir. Nothing to worry your precious head about at all! Turns out that ten minutes after they took you away the dead man woke up and went back to home -- almost forgetting to pay his bill, until I reminded him with a tuning fork up his nose.”

“You mean, you mean the lumdiddle didn’t kill him?” Tim asked, incredulous.

“Not a bit of it, sir. In fact, he seemed rather healthier than before -- what with his cheeks as red as roses and the white in his hair disappeared and that sad limp of his gone. The fact of the matter is, good sir, I wanted to ask you for another one of them there bottled lumdiddles. See if it can help any of me other customers in a like manner.”

“Well . . . “ said Tim slowly, remembering how quickly the barkeep had wanted him put on trial just a few hours before. “I won’t give you another one -- but I’ll sell you one for a gold dinkum.”

“Fair enough” said the barkeep, rummaging through the pockets of his dirty white apron until he came up with a gold dinkum. “Here you are, sir. Just bring it down in the morning when you have breakfast -- I do trust you’re staying on?”

“Uh, for now. Yes. It’s been a confusing night, so if you don’t mind I’ll just bid you goodnight and go to my bed.”

And with that the barkeep handed Tim a candle and wished him cordial dreams.

The Adventures of Tim Laughingstock. Four. In Boogle Hollow.

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It has come to this author’s attention that past tense and present tense are getting all mixed up in the story of Tim Laughingstock, causing readers some confusion and fussiness. The author wishes to state that he is not being lackadaisical about the matter, but is under a magical compulsion stemming from the residual magic of Svarm. Even though she can no longer practice any type of enchantment, Svarm’s previous magic was so deep that there are still manifestations of it extant. One of these manifestations is the altering and negating of the time continuum when writing about her. This means that Tim and Svarm and other characters may be described as doing something in the past -- or they may be described as doing something right now in the present. And there’s nothing that you or I can do about it. So grab a bowl of nixie nuggets and continue your reading unperturbed.

********************************************************************************************************

Boogle Hollow was the closest village to Mountebank. It was about twenty miles due east, as the horse flies. And since horses don’t fly anymore -- the last flying horse had been shot and stuffed to put on display at the Jonesonium Institute back when Aloysius Laughingstock had been a babe in gilded diapers -- Tim was forced to walk through the Tiger Woods to reach Boogle Hollow to make his first sales pitch for pet lumdiddles. The regular road, of course, was chock-a-block with lumdiddles, and impassable. He wasn’t worried about the tigers that inhabited the woods very much, since they mostly rolled little white stones around while growling “Frowr!” incessantly. And they only ate cured hams -- so healthy actors and actresses avoided the place completely.

No, what worried Tim as he tramped through the weedy undergrowth beneath the trees were the McSkeeters. They are a tribe of savagely ill-tempered pixies, with long pointy noses as hard as steel. They don’t much like people tramping through their forest -- they consider Tiger Woods to be completely their property -- so anyone they catch in the woods is subject to a very painful poking around their ankles until they get clear of the trees.

Argyle socks attracted McSkeeters by the dozens, so Tim wore plain white socks. Every snick or click in the forest underbrush caused him to start and look wildly around while performing a sort of demented folk dance with his knees alternately pumping high into the air and his arms swinging blindly about.

But he worried for nothing. The McSkeeters were all on a long visit with their distant cousins the McHoppers over the mountains. The McHoppers had very long legs and enjoyed nothing so much as vaulting over anything that was taller than they were -- and since they all were only six inches tall, that included a lot of things. They were famous for jumping over conclusions and jumpstarting arthritic horses that didn’t want to move anymore. Their leader, Leapfrog Hoptoad, was summoning all the Wee Folk in the kingdom for a Council of War. He was determined to wage war on the Tall Tails (as ordinary humans were called) and drive them into the sea, for their many insults and bullying actions against the Wee Folk. He was a bit of a hothead and burnheart. So far none but his own kin had answered his summons, which made him even more hot in the head, and he was seriously considering declaring war on all the fairies and gnomes and others who had ignored his call prior to eliminating the Tall Tails. But since he was killed by a falling acorn soon after Tim arrived at Boogle Hollow, there is really no point in going on about him or the McHoppers and McSkeeters. Sick tranny glorious Monday, as the King of the Peacocks likes to tell his subjects.  

After spending a miserable night in Tiger Woods, Tim arrived in Boogle Hollow the next day at noon. He was tired and dirty and hungry, so he headed straight for the Boogle Inn, and, spending some of the gold the Council had generously given him, was bathed and fed and napped before you could say “grumpy gumption goes to gallows.” As evening fell, he strolled about the town to work out his marketing plan for the morrow.

Boogle Hollow had a perfectly good road going through it, with not a single solitary lumdiddle on it or near it. So there was lots of hustle and bustle going on throughout the village. Even as night fell. The street lamps glowed brightly, lit with hangfire, and the shops were wide open to cater to the tourists who came to town for a look-see. Tim stopped at a bake shop for a slice of watermelon cake. He was heartened to see so many children out with their parents of an evening, strolling about without any pets on a leash. With visions of leashed lumdiddles being dragged along by every family in town, Tim went back to the Boogle Hollow Inn to sit in the tap room and chew things up with the barkeep.

“Ho, barkeep” Tim called cheerfully. “A cup of your best licorice beer, if you please!”

“Right away, good sir!” the barkeep called back happily. He had seen how Tim had paid for his lodging with good gold coin, the King’s gold coin, and was determined to keep Tim happy and well supplied with whatever expensive fripperies he wanted.

“Have one on me” Tim said expansively when the barkeep came over with the cup of licorice beer.

“Thank you, your good graciousness!” replied the barkeep. “Might I ask what brings you to our perky little village tonight?”

“Lumdiddles” Tim replied.

“Beg pardon, but what did you say? Sounded like lumdiddles.”

“Lumdiddles. That is exactly what I said. Let’s have another round of this excellent licorice beer!”

“As you wish, sir.” The barkeep was no longer certain he wanted to cozy up to this particular customer, no matter how much gold jingled in his purse. Nasty things, those lumdiddles. They took over the road to Mountebank years ago, and now the place was practically a wraith hole. But barkeeps are inherently curious fellows; they can’t stay away from a puzzle.

“Here you go, sir. And thanks for the same. You say lumdiddles brings you to Boogle Hollow -- how so?”

Tim produced a flask of pimento wine from his coat pocket, uncorking it to pour out a very groggy lumdiddle onto the bar top. The barkeep recoiled as if he’d been bitten by it already.

“Get that nasty thing off my bar!” he yelled at Tim.

“Tut - tut. No need to carry on like that. This is a domesticated lumdiddle. Perfectly harmless and good humored. It makes an ideal pet.”

To demonstrate, Tim gave the lumdiddle a little shove so that it weaved unsteadily about the bar, dragging its pincers behind it and issuing a series of tiny belches that sounded something like “koop koop.” It had taken Constable Keystone several hours to catch several beligerant lumdiddles in a quilted blanket and poke them into flasks of pimento wine for Tim before he left for Boogle Hollow. The Mountebank Council had had to promise Keystone a promotion to Field Marshall before he consented to do it.

The barkeep approached the lumdiddle cautiously.

“Domesticated, you say? What does it eat?”

“Oh any crumbs and leftovers -- it’s not a picky eater. Just keep it moistened inside a flask of pimento wine every night and it will give you years and years of unadulterated pleasure!”

“The doofus you say. Hmmm. Well, mayhaps I’ll just have to get me one for the customers to play with on a slow night. How much?”

“For you, my good man, it’s on the house. Please accept this one as a token of my esteem for your splendid taproom services” said Tim grandly, as he swept the lumdiddle back into the flask and handed it to the beaming barkeep.

“That is a handsome gesture, sir, and I’ll not forget it until the frogs turn blue!”

Just then several thirsty customers came into the taproom, asking loudly for a bottle of Old Camel’s Breath and some belly button chasers. They were in very high spirits, and looked like a reckless bunch out for as much fun as they could get before dawn.

After serving them their drinks and putting a bowl of nixie nuggets in front of them, the barkeep proudly brought over his new pet in a bottle and poured it out onto the counter.

“Here’s something you gents might enjoy” the barkeep said.

Looking steadily at the lumdiddle, one of the Old Camel’s Breath drinkers picked it up -- and swallowed it.

“Hey!” shouted the barkeep.

“Not bad” said the lumdiddle eater. “Tastes like a lumbago salad.”

So saying, he turned white as a bed sheet and fell over.

“Holy cakes of soap!” moaned the barkeep, pointing at Tim. “Look what your little pest has done -- it’s poisoned one of me best customers! Call the Constable! I want this highbinder locked up and charged with pesticide!”

Miracles

“. . . and they did despise them because of the many miracles which were wrought among them.”

If you believe in miracles you haven’t got a chance

Of making it in this cold world of science and finance.

Coincidence may be approved, but heavenly intervention

Is just a fairy tale, or worse, and cause for great contention.

Be careful who you share your sacred stories with, my friend --

The world is full of people who delight your words to bend.

And you may find yourself locked up if angels you descry.

For laws are coming that will make all miracles a lie.

David and Saul (and Trump)

If Trump would only fire all the government at once

He’d be the only one around -- a solitary dunce.

And then he could run up and down the Oval Office stairs

And throw his quirky tantrums and pull out his golden hairs.

Playing hide and seek with White House press would be so fun

That he might even soon forget he hates them, ev’ry one.

If all the clerks and bureaucrats and Cabinets were gone,

Old Trump could have a jolly time just putting on the lawn.

Then he could bring in Russians to run things the way they ought

To be run in America -- with gulags and garotte.

Fire whom you please, O mighty President of all --

But just remember David took the crown away from Saul.

The Adventures of Tim Laughingstock. Three. Creating a Demand for Lumdiddles.

CREATING A DEMAND FOR LUMDIDDLES

“Gentlemen, it can’t miss!” Tim Laughingstock cried in the Town Council Room, to a small but growing number of city councilmen, and a skeptical Mayor Hissy.

Tim stood at the lectern in front of the group, with several posters and graphs he had hastily drawn up the night before being held up for inspection -- not by Miss Poodle, who normally handled these things, but by Svarm. Her alluring smile riveted the council members attention like a railroad spike. And Councilman Pertwee had actually gone out to spread the word among the absent members of the council -- “It’s Svarm, not Poodle, with Laughingstock today -- hurry up!” Even retired and former council members were showing up now. Soon it was standing room only, as clerks and a few janitors pushed their way in.

“So what you’re proposing” began Mayor Hissy, “is that we send you out to create an interest, a demand, for lumdiddles in other towns. Am I hearing you right?”

“Yes, ma’am” replied Tim. “When other towns realize we’ve cornered the market on lumdiddles, and further realize what a valuable commodity they are, they’ll be coming back here in droves to take them off our hands. No, not take them off our hands -- beg to buy them from us!”

“But who would want to pay good money for those useless creatures?” This from Councilman Tucking, the town’s fat butcher. “They can’t do anything but hiss and pinch and crawl up your leg!”

“Ah” replied Tim, “that is where some creative marketing comes into play.” He pointed at a poster, in the delicate hands of Svarm, crudely drawn, showing little children happily playing with docile lumdiddles on a green patch of lawn under a bright yellow sun. “Lumdiddles can be marketed as an inexpensive but affectionate pet!” He motioned to Svarm and she pulled up a different poster, this one showing a lumdiddle floating in a bottle of pimento wine. “We simply soak the lumdiddles in some pimento wine to make them groggy -- then tell the kids to keep soaking the lumdiddles in pimento wine once a week to keep their skin nice and shiney . . .”

“And not only do we get rid of those rotten pests” interrupted Councilman Flimbert, who was the town’s biggest wine retailer, “but we can sell their folks all that pimento wine that got wasps in it this year! It’s brilliant!”

“Brilliant, my carbuncle!” snorted Councilman Wangleman. “It’s pure lunacy. Nobody will fall for such obvious fibbery. It can’t be done, not with intelligent people. Why, we’ll be the . . . the . . . chucklebait of the entire countryside!”  Wangleman happily fingered his lucky twine knot as the room exploded in applause.

Svarm put down the posters and graphs to step forward. The room went dead silent, except for Mayor Hissy -- who tried to continue a quiet conversation with Councilman Flimbert, until he whispered “shut up, your honor” to her as he, too, ogled the lovely former sorceress.

“Mr. Tim, council members, your honor the Mayor -- if I may?” she cooed. Heads nodded violently. “Thank you.”

Svarm walked up to Councilman Wangleman, who began to sweat profusely while grinning like a simpleton. “May I see your lucky knot please?”

He handed it over immediately. She turned it around in her hand, then held it up for all to see.

“How many of you have such a lucky twine knot with you right now?” she asked.

Nearly everyone in the room squirmed about briefly to bring out their lucky twine knot and hold it up. Even Mayor Hissy sheepishly held one up.

“And how much did you pay for your piece of string?” asked Svarm, still exhibiting a smile that would turn crabgrass into roses.

There was a general coughing and humming in the room -- nobody wanted to admit paying an outrageous price for their twine knot. You could only get them from the twine knot man when he managed to get to town through the woods during the Winter Carnival. They were made by flaxen haired maidens somewhere to the East, who always plucked one strand of their golden hair to include in each knot. That’s what made each knot unique, and so lucky. And so expensive. In Mountebank you weren’t considered fully clothed if you didn’t have a lucky twine knot with you wherever you went.

“So you see” said Svarm persuasively, “if you fine intelligent people are willing to pay such good sums for a piece of knotted string, why not let Mr. Tim try to get others to look upon our awful lumdiddles in the same way -- as something that everyone needs to become happier?”

This time the applause was deafening, rattling the very window panes in the room.

“Thank you, Svarm, for that thought” said the mayor brusquely after the applause died down. “We will take this under consideration . . . “

“I move we give Tim Laughingstock a large bag of the king’s gold coins to travel and promote the sale of our valuable lumdiddle stock!” cried Wangleman, ignoring Mayor Hissy’s baleful glare.

“Second! All in favor jump up and give Miss Svarm a hug!” shouted Councilman Pertwee.

It was unanimous. Svarm got the hugs, Tim got the heavy bag of gold, and Mayor Hissy got so mad she went home and threw her lucky twine knot at her husband while he was napping on the couch.

Sorry, We Can't Afford Any More Elections

Even conducting an election this fall could be beyond reach, said Reneé Kolen, the Curry County clerk, who has one full-time staff member left in her elections division, and is facing another possible 30 percent cut in funding this year in her budget.

From the NYTimes

Cutting the budget enough

Makes holding elections real tough.

So those that are in

Just sit back and grin --

They can’t be thrown out by the scruff.

The Adventures of Tim Laughingstock. Two. Svarm the Sorceress.

AUNT SVARM

After his interrupted nap was completed Tim looked over old travel brochures from his grandfather’s time, when thousands of people visited Mountebank every year. They came to see the new Meagerscope bobbit factory and take home a sample hand-crafted bobbit. They climbed atop the sprawling muffle tree that stood in the town square -- sound did not travel inside the dusky green foliage. There were village festivals where all the girls dressed up in ribbons and lace and flimsy sarongs to dance alluringly around the biddy stone -- an ancient boulder that was said to give village girls the power to attract any man they wanted if they danced around it long enough. The village men held monthly jackanape races. The open air market offered vintage pimento wine, along with mellow cheepers that turned the tongue gold and left the stomach dazed and amazed. Children scurried from tourist to tourist selling paper bags full of the village’s famous blunt beans. When you held one up to your ear it shouted “Beat it, ya lousy vagabond!” or “Nerts to you, boodle brain!” Very entertaining.

Tim sighed as he put the brochures away. Would such good times ever come again to Mountebank? The lumdiddles had really put a wad in everyone’s spigot. There was enough to eat and sturdy clothes to wear and lots of firewood for the winter -- the Civic Warehouse was open to anyone for necessities at any time. But the whole village was getting seedier by the minute. Nobody repaired their broken shutters anymore. Cockleberry bushes had sprung up between the cobblestones on almost every street. And the pigeons wouldn’t even fly anymore -- they just slouched around the biddy stone waiting for handouts. Nobody seemed to care anymore how the village poked along. Except the Mayor, and she was a congenital screaming mimi.

Tim waited for Miss Poodle to find her purse and deliberately make her way to the Chamber exit before blowing out the candles and locking up. He was home a few minutes later -- he lived in his parent’s home just a few blocks away.

Aunt Svarm greeted him warmly at the front door. Her radiant smile made it almost unnecessary to have candles at all. Tim thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And all the tradesmen and merchants agreed with him. She ravaged everyone with her exceptional beauty.

Which was not unusual, considering she had once been the most powerful sorceress in the entire realm. The spells she weaved captured and destroyed marauding dragons. Her potions turned knock-kneed cowards into knightly heroes and cured hundreds of Mucous Pukous sufferers. Her amulets could charm grubs out of the greengage and strike terror into the hearts of ogres and snufflestinkers.

But she grew proud and scornful over her powers and set at naught the King’s request to make spinach taste like cinnamon buns. He in turn invoked a full Wizard’s Council, which banished the haughty Svarm to the podunkiest region of the kingdom -- in other words, Mountebank. Her spellcasting license was revoked and she is doomed to remain in Mountebank until the love of a confirmed bachelor redeems her. That is why she showed up at Tim’s doorstep the very same night, the terrible night, his parents went out for a walk and never came back. She told him she was his Aunt Svarm, on his mother’s side, and had come to take care of him. He was already nineteen years old, but did not fall under her beauteous spell in the least. In fact, above his bed hangs a pyrographic sign he made at the age of ten that reads: “Never Gully Girlies Unless Girlies Gully You!”

Some there were in the village that suspected Tim had made away with his parents so he could step into his father’s shoes as president of the Chamber of Merchants. Svarma’s sudden appearance did nothing to assuage their doubts. But as time went by it became apparent to even the most ignorant apple-knocker that Tim was ambition-challenged. He liked nothing better than to spend his days down at the River Glox, angling for snapping minnows. He had to be trussed up and physically taken to his hereditary office in the Chamber building to assume his new presidential duties. And told to stay there eight hours a day Monday through Friday or have his ears painted green.

Svarma thought that helping him succeed in his new duties would make him fall in love with her. But so far Tim has remained such a confirmed bachelor that he can sit all day on the biddy stone and never feel a twinge of desire. He classifies women with the lower phylum.

But that is not to say the other men in the village don’t appreciate Svarma’s charms. And this has worked to Tim’s unknowing advantage. The baker brings his freshest loaves to the kitchen door each morning in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Svarma in her apron. He always forgets to charge her for the bread. The grocer gives her the longest, stiffest carrots, and the biggest, firmest heads of cabbage for her stews and ragouts. He only thinks of her when it comes to big juicy melons. He also neglects to charge her anything. And the butcher himself, although he is so fat he hasn’t seen his own shoes in sixteen years, brings her his choicest cuts, huffing and puffing like an asthmatic pipe organ. He never, ever, asks for payment. So the money Tim gives to Svarm for the household bills just piles up in the kitchen drawer until it begins to overflow onto the floor. Then Svarm takes it to buy patches for all the children at the orphanage. They don’t need patches, since their clothes are always quite new and well maintained. But the orphanage overseer, a man in his late fifties who has a wife that snores, is deliriously happy to accept the patches personally from Svarm -- and sees to it that each orphan has a dozen or more patches sewn onto their Sunday best, no matter how much they whine.

Svarm is also an accomplished cook, even without spells. This evening she gives Tim a sizzling platter of bacon brocade with mounds of cheesed potatoes, and a greengage tart for dessert. But alas, although Casper the Conqueror once said that the way to a man’s loyalty is through his gullet, Tim remains unmoved by Svarm’s cookery.

After dinner Tim restlessly paces up and down the living room.

“How can I get rid of those awful lumdiddles or get the road crew working again?” he asks out loud. His brow furrows like corduroy.

Svarm slinks into the living room from the kitchen, with a hitch in her gitalong that would cause a mud turtle to do flip flops. Tim gives her a friendly smile. A friendly, avuncular smile. Romance is the last thing on his mind tonight. Same as every night.

“Thanks for that great meal, Aunt Svarm. I wonder why mom could never cook like that? Do you know?”

“Oh, she prefered to dig for mothballs and such like” replied Svarm evasively. Tim has never once questioned her conveniently showing up the same night his parents disappeared, or asked anything about the family -- thank goodness!

“Why don’t you concentrate on those lumdiddles instead of the New Road?” she says. “Those lazy villagers will never work an hour, especially since they are never getting paid.”

“Yes, but those little creatures are so menacing -- the way they hiss and click their pincers at everything. I wouldn’t go near one of ‘em for a king’s gold coin!”

Her eyes alight with memories of the old magic, Svarm mutters a thinking spell under her breath -- even though it won’t do a bit of good.

"I wish I could help you" she says. Then begins to joke with him. "Why don't you paint them all gold and try selling them?" She begins worrying when he stops in mid stride and gazes at her with his eyes popping out of his head.

“Wait!” he shouts. “I’ve got something -- something big!”

Going up to Svarm he takes her in his arms to waltz around the room. Svarm is delighted, and hopeful. Is he going to kiss her?

But no. He is just delirious with having thought up a plan. Which involves a bag of the king’s gold coins. When he lets her go, she droops and shuffles back into the kitchen to rinse out the wooden bowls and sand down the porcelain floor. She doesn’t hear him explain to her what his plan is all about. It’s hard to listen when you’re crying.