Shot-Through-The-Guts had been shot through the guts.
"Tsk tsk," said Portly Pantaloons, packing his pipe.
"Serves him right!" growled Razormouth, having done it.
"Might...die..." gasped Shot-Through-The-Guts.
"Tsk tsk," scolded Portly Pantaloons, with his habitual air of mild disapproval.
"He woulda stole my teeth with a monkey wrench!" complained Razormouth, who hated the dentist's smock that Shot-Through-The-Guts liked to wear.
"It's worn ironically," groaned Shot-Through-The Guts, as a crimson stain spread across his dentist's smock.
"I think it's vulgar!" cried Mrs. Portly Pantaloons indignantly.
Razormouth said nothing, but clicked his teeth together menacingly.
"Where will you go," inquired Portly Pantaloons, gesturing with his pipe, "if you, eh, pass on, as it were?"
"Straight to hell!" interjected Razormouth, dancing from foot to foot.
At that moment, a host of beautiful angels wearing pure white dentist's smocks floated down and tenderly collected Shot-Through-The-Guts, then returned to the clouds.
"Not from this neighborhood I daresay," complained Portly Pantaloons, stamping his cane importantly. "Probably came in on the bus line."
"Dentist's smocks!" bellowed Razormouth, his little eyes widening. "I shoulda plugged 'em! I shoulda....I..."
"There there," cooed Mrs. Portly Pantaloons distractedly. Turning to her husband, she asked, "What bus line, dear? They seemed to appear out of the sky."
Portly Pantaloons, grunted, mumbled something that seemed very definite in his sonorous baritone, and pretended great interest in a bird across the way. Mrs. Portly Pantaloons was still talking, and Razormouth was still blubbering, but by then, Portly Pantaloons' mind was far away, calculating ways to manufacture more monkey wrenches, more dentist's smocks, and more shooters-through-the-guts, at the least cost, with the widest distribution, and at the highest profit.
The bird, whose name was Captain Poopybird, lifted its tail feathers, pooped, and sang.
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