Topical Guide 894
Mark Dorset
Reference: Internal
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 8:
I had risen to my feet and said, dramatically, perhaps a touch too dramatically, my voice quaking, my hands shaking, “I remember a day long ago, when I was a child in a high chair gumming a piece of zwieback — ”
“Peter,” said Preston, “this is neither the time nor the place for an extended reminiscence — ”
“Damn it, Preston,” I said, striking my fist on the table, “hear me out!”
He shrugged and folded his arms across his chest and, to his credit, heard me out.
“A neighbor, a fussy, educated man named Dudley Beaker, was visiting, and he was talking to my mother, talking about me, without making any attempt to disguise what he was saying because he thought that I was too young to understand, and he told her — I’ll never forget it — that childhood is like a moment on a mountaintop in the sun, or maybe he said a moment in the sunshine on a mountaintop, before we descend into the vale of tears, or maybe it was the valley of death. […]”
Little Follies, “The Fox and the Clam”:
“Don’t you think he’s a little young for a story like this?” asked my father.
“Oh, yes,” said my mother. She hugged me from behind and ran her hands over my chest. “He’s much too young, Dudley. Don’t you remember telling me that childhood is like a moment on a mountaintop in the sunshine before we descend into the vale of tears?”
“I don’t remember that,” said my father. “When did he say that?”
“Oh, one time,” said my mother. “I forget when.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Mr. Beaker. He chucked me under the chin and looked straight at me and frowned. “Smile while you can, Peter. Enjoy that moment on the mountaintop in the sunshine.”
“Why don’t I remember that?” asked my father.
Revenge
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 8:
“Listen, Peter,” he said. “I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible to resurrect the series. It’s laid to rest, behind us.
I happen to know that later, after Preston and Douglas folded and Peter obtained the rights to the entire Larry Peters series, Peter considered writing a satire, the kind called “scathing” in reviews, that would follow the story of Larry Peters’s banishment from the Preston and Douglas catalog. It would have had this cover:
He never published it. I’ve read some of it, and I think he was right not to publish. Revenge is not his style. He has never been petty.
See also:
Reference: Internal TG 560
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