Discovering Higg's bosun

I SEE THEY’VE FOUND Higgs’ bosun at long last. Found him in a cave in the Swiss Alps, of all places. The news has made headlines everywhere.

Capt. Higgs should never have let him ashore, of course. His bosun never drank on the good ship Hellfire, but every time he set foot on land he fell prey to his two weaknesses, booze and broads.

Many’s the time Capt. Higgs rescued his bosun from the arms of a blousy blond in some tavern of ill repute, but the good Capt. forgave him for all his sins. Nobody had ever made the Hellfire run so smoothly. When the bosun was on board everything worked like well-oiled machinery. When other ships were in trouble, whether it was a question of bad accounts or saving sails from destruction in storms, the bosun was there smoothing things out on the Hellfire. He was the glue that held everything together, the brains behind every scheme and the brawn behind every movement.

His reputation was world-wide, and while there was evidence for all to see of how smoothly he could make things work, some naysayers actually doubted that he existed at all.   

To tell the truth, even Capt. Higgs didn’t know what the bosun’s secret of success was. The captain often said discovering the bosun was like discovering electricity. Nobody knew what electricity was at that time and nobody could have imagined the many uses we put it to today. But Higgs discovered the bosun, so the bosun keeps the universe together and Higgs gets all the credit.

I just hope they’ll extract the bosun from that Swiss cave before the Swiss broads find him. Or he finds them.

Today’s Thought

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in Night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was Light.
— Pope, Epitaph for Sir Isaac Newton

Tailpiece

“Waiter, here’s a fly in my soup.”
(9)“Not to worry, sir, they dissolve in a few minutes.”

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