The Gentleman's Friend, circa 1857
One of Michael Flannigan's least successful inventions, The Gentleman's Friend, was the result of a particularly unfortunate evening out with an old friend, Gunter Gruntz, and a test model of his Particulate Breathing Apparatus.(1) In the bleary aftermath, Flannigan remarked to his sister Molly that it might have been a better evening if he and his companions had been able to pass along their calling cards from a distance, or at all. Thus the conception of The Gentleman's Friend.

In short time Flannigan had engineered the apparatus which was to be the genesis of so much hardship and tragedy during the social season of 1857. Based on a simple projectile engine created with metal and rubber ellipses, Flannigan was able to get The Gentleman's Friend to fire calling cards at an astonishing distance of 50 yards, given a prevailing wind and help from the Royal Artillery. It goes without saying that the device was perhaps too powerful for its own good.

The first clue came to the Flannigan household the day after Michael sold his first dozen. The blazing twelve-point headline on page one of the Times said it all: "Lord Rudgmont receives fatal paper cut. Other gentlemen are lacerated in incident."

Flannigan was devastated, but because of the notoriety, he sold more of them. Always a practical man at heart, Flannigan made the sales, with a warning that some "chaffing and epidermal trimming may result in improper use." Gentlemen took to wearing thick woolen suits, called "tweeds" in an effort prevent the damage. Some stopped using the device all together, or relied on another mock-Flannigan called the Snub. (2)

But tragedy struck when Lord Peasbody and his "companion", a Nigel Botty from Chesterfield-on-Tyne, were killed because of Peasbody's Gentleman's Friend. He and Botty were hailing a cab outside of a well-known brothel that catered to "rough business" when they were accosted by Sir Dudsfinch Rectim. Sir Dudsfinch had mistaken them for two ruffians who had given him a severe nose tweaking the night before, and was waving his revolver at them, calling them out. Lord Peasbody, seeing the pistol, assumed it was a Gentleman's Friend like his own, and prepared to fire his calling card at Sir Dudsfinch. The latter took aim and fired, killing Botty on the first shot and wounding Peasbody most severely in the posterior during subsequent rounds. (3)

The scandal was terrible, and in this particular case, Flannigan was shamed enough to retreat to his native Ireland, thus returning his sisters to their roots, and his precocious niece, young Emily to her homeland.

--"Scholarship" by The Squire

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Notes:

(1)This evening was later immortalized by Joseph "Spungy" Freakinswad, a poet of ill-repute from Bankside. Freakinswad happened upon Flannigan and his friend Gunter Gruntz (who was visiting from his native Tyrolia) in a seedy part of Whitechapel where Gruntz was hoping to notch his Nautch and find a little of his favourite "Chinese remedy". The poem is a flagrant example of titembetic rhythm and naughty language, and so outraged the Queen when it was published that she was reportedly ill and swooned -- she might have very well have aspirated on her regurgitated steak and kidney pudding had not Albert been there with a length of rubber pipe and a fez. [back]

(2)The Snub was another cheap knock-off devised by Flannigan's inventing nemesis, J. W. Walton. Instead of an elegant long pistol, he created a snub-nosed version that actually fired large calling-card-shaped pellets. They were extremely painful, but did not actually kill anyone. However, they were seen as socially inferior, and a fine gentleman would never appreciate being "snubbed" by anyone -- the etymology of the modern usage.[back]

(3)Before gangrene set in, Peasbody was later heard to murmur, "Botty, oh, my Botty." His family was never certain to what he referred. [back]