The Mysteries of Georgetown (conclusion)

Oh, dear...we forgot that we ran out of "Cognac" that night. We notified the host, so he nonchalantly descended to the damp, nitrous basement--pace Edgar Allan Poe and "The Cask of Amontillado"--and pulled together an assortment of bottles. He quickly drained the dregs from every bottle into a decanter, swirled it, and poured the mixture into snifters. Back upstairs in the library, the host announced that the guests were "vairy lucky" as he "vas able to pull a Cognac from the vamily reserve." The gentlemen exchanged glances, took a snifter, smelled, sipped, and graciously commented. His deep voice throbbing with gratitude and honor, Mr. Salinger himself said, "This Cognac is very inviting..."

As was his wont, the host spoke loudly and forcefully of current affairs for about twenty minutes before directing the guests back into the salon for musical entertainment. Seating himself at the bench, he started with something grandiose and Listzian before launching abruptly into a Jerry Herman tune from "Mame" or "Hello, Dolly!" It was better than Liberace. Finishing with a two-handed chord and a heavy foot on the damper pedal, he cried, "Pierre! Your turn!" Taken aback, Mr. Salinger looked around. The other guests egged him on. Eventually he retired his snifter, seated himself at the bench, and played something simple. No late-nineteenth-century arpeggios for him; for the press secretary of the late JFK, only the reassuring precision of a Scarlatti sonatina.

Having scheduled the end of the festivities as tightly as every other part of the evening, the host abruptly announced, "It was pleasure having you all at ___________ this evening." We hurried to fetch the guests' coats regardless of whether they were finished with coffee or not. In hindsight, it seemed--and reasonably--that everyone left as a pack. In their wake, the host and hostess delicately perched themselves on the edge of the tattered antique sofa and assessed the quality and quantity of their evening's symposium. As we turned to finish cleaning up, we wondered what their guests were saying about their own experience of that evening, but perhaps certain mysteries of Georgetown are better left unresolved. In retrospect, it did seem that even Mr. Salinger's poodles were happy to depart into the dark, Washington night...