AND SO there I was, stood betwixt a rifle-toting huntsman and my prized pet lion Thundercock, outside London Zoo. The atmosphere was so tense you could have cut the air with a knife, taken a slice and made yourself a very strained sandwich. It really was very tense indeed.

“Cackshott,” I said, addressing the crazed hunter carefully. “Lower the rifle. Come on, just put it down now.”

“Not until I’ve bagged that creature!” Colonel Cackshott cried in return.

“You shall not be ‘bagging’ anything, you miscreant.”

“Oh no?” Cackshott retorted, raising his rifle up as he took aim at the lion.

“No.” I said sternly, moving myself between Cackshott’s rifle and dear Thundercock. “If you want to shoot that lion, you shall have to go through me first.” I paused. “And if you want to go through me, you shall have to go through my man-servant before that.”

“What?” Botter exclaimed, peeking his head out from his hiding place behind a nearby cab.

“‘Tis in your contract, you know,” I explained patiently.

“I don’t have a contract.”

“Well, I have a copy. I keep it in my head. Trust me, that clause is most definitely there.”

Botter and I continued to discuss the small print of his entirely fictitious contract; not only because I enjoy tormenting my wretched servant, but also because I had noticed Inspector Spunkleford creeping out from behind the back of the cab, and I was discreetly watching him silently motioning to the police officers outside the zoo. I reasoned that Spunkleford was formulating some sort of ambush on Cackshott while he was distracted, and thus I had hoped my continued contractual dispute with Botter would buy the officers ample time to carry out their plan.

“…milord? ” Botter continued, having gone unheard whilst I had been observing Spunkleford’s machinations.

“Hmm? What?” I said, half-watching the officers slowly sneaking toward the increasingly agitated Cackshott.

“I said, ‘is there any way that my lawyer can see this contract, milord’?”

“You don’t have a lawyer, Botter.”

“No, but I can imagine one,” Botter replied. “And I was thinking that an imaginary lawyer would be very well qualified to examine an imaginary contract.”

“Botter, that is surprisingly witty for you,” I exclaimed. “Of course, you do realise that there is a clause in your contract stating that you shall never attempt to be funnier than your master, so I am afraid you are in direct breach of your terms of employment, and -”

“SHUT UP!” screamed Cackshott, finally growing impatient of our banter. “By jove, you two do speak a load of old rot, you know.”

“Charming,” I mumbled, as I watched the policemen cautiously advance upon Cackshott.

And then everything went to hell in a handbasket.

First, one of the officers stood on a stick – or it might well have been a stick-insect which had managed to escape from the zoo itself, I cannot be sure. At any rate, it snapped under the policeman’s foot with a loud crack, causing Cackshott to swivel round quickly.

“Stop right there!” he bellowed, pointing his rifle straight at the clod-footed copper. “One more move and I shall blast you all to kingdom-bloody-come!”

While Cackshott screamed blue murder at the policemen, I saw my chance to take him down myself. Well, if you want a job done properly, leave it to an aristocratic adventurer and gentle-man of action, after all. I began dashing toward Cackshott, but he was on high alert by now, and he swung back around to face me, his gun trained on my lordly form. I skidded to a halt a few feet shy of my target.

“No second chances!” yelled Cackshott, as he raised his gun.

I braced myself for the impending bullet and a woefully unspectacular demise at the hand of a nut-bar in a terribly dishevelled safari suit.

Cackshott pulled the trigger, and time slowed to a crawl.

There was a deafening roar, something struck me hard, and then there was nothing but complete and utter blackness.

*****

OF course, it does not take a genius to realise that I had not been killed, else how would I have written up this astonishing adventure? No, instead I regained consciousness on the street, Botter’s filthy face being the first sight my eyes beheld as they flickered open.

“Eurrrrggh…” I moaned. “Is this hell?”

“Milord!” Botter beamed, gently mopping my brow with a wet towel. “You are alright!”

“Argh! Tits on stilts!” I gasped as I moved to sit up, pain flashing through the right-hand side of my body. “What the ruddy hell happened? All I remember is being hit by something…”

“Allow me to field that one!” chirped Spunkleford, suddenly coming into view beside me. “It was incredible, Likely! Absolutely incredible!”

“What was? What in the name of Dickens’ dick-end are you babbling about?”

“Well, Cackshott went to shoot you, but then – oh, my! Your pet lion suddenly bounded on up like a locomotive, and knocked you clear from danger! He saved you, Likely! He saved your very life!”

I grinned. “Oh, Thundercock! A more loyal pet one could not possibly ask for! You’d do well to learn by his example, Botter,” I said, turning to my man-servant. “So, where is dear Thundercock? I should like to thank him personally!”

Botter and Spunkleford exchanged solemn glances.

“Erm…well, you see…Thundercock did save your life…but…well, it was at a cost, I am afraid…” Spunkleford sighed. “He didn’t just knock you clear from the firing line, Likely. He took the bullet, as well.”

“What? So…so where is he? Where is Thundercock?” I asked, as I scrambled to my feet, looking around for my proud pet. “Answer me, damn your eyes!”

Spunkleford gently removed his hat and lowered his head. “I…I am afraid we lost him, Likely. I am so very sorry.”

“No!” I shouted, dropping back down to my knees. “It…it cannot be! Not dear Thundercock! Dear God, no! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Um…” Spunkleford interjected, ruining a perfectly good dramatic moment. “We…we did find him again, though.”

“What?” I said, mid-outcry.

“Oh, yes. You see, Thundercock DID take the bullet, that much is true. We thought he was done for, but as my men pounced on Cackshott and took him away, that old lion starts stirring, then he starts sniffing the air, and then lo and behold, he gets back up!” Spunkleford shook his head in disbelief as he recounted the events. “Before we know what’s happening, that lion of yours goes bounding off into the zoo! We managed to track him down, to the big cat enclosure. It turns out that he caught the scent of a couple of lionesses there…and…well, he went to…erm…well, you know…”

A wide grin spread across my face. “Ha-ha! That old devil! Takes a bullet and still has time for the ladies! Ha! Clearly, he takes after his beloved master, eh?”

And with that we all fell into helpless laughter, such was the hilarity of my humourous observation.

Toodle-pip!

- Lord Likely.

DESPITE having practically plastered London with ‘Lost Cat’ posters, and having scoured the capital myself, I seemed no closer to finding my beloved pet lion, Thundercock. The police had even offered to help me search as well, promising to look ‘high and low’ for my poor pet, which I thought was rather inefficient of them, unless they hoped to see my lion soaring across the skies in a hot air balloon or something.

Anyway, in spite of all these efforts, I was still no closer to locating dear Thundercock, and so it was in a rather depressive state my man-servant found me as he slithered into the drawing room of Likely Towers.

“Milord?” he asked tentatively. “I just thought I’d -”

“Oh, do sod off, Botter. I am not in the mood to even attempt to converse with the likes of you today,” I sighed, turning away to gaze out of the window in deep, handsome contemplation. After a while, however, it became quite apparent that Botter had failed to heed my words, and had resolutely failed to sod off.

“Why have you not sodded off yet?” I snapped, swinging round in my chair to find my man-servant still standing there, his head bowed as he nervously fumbled a piece of paper in his hands.

“Um…well, I…it’s just that you have been so down of late, milord…I thought…I thought this might cheer you up a bit,” Botter replied meekly, proffering the paper towards me.

“It had better be a warrant for your immediate execution, Botter,” I snarled, grabbing the sheet from my servant’s filthy grasp. “I fear only that would bring me any amount of joy on this greyest of days.”

“It is better than that, milord,” Botter brightened. “It seems like there is an adventure afoot!”

“An adventure, eh?” I exclaimed excitedly, momentarily forgetting my woes. There really is nothing like the prospect of a jolly good adventure to clear the senses, focus the mind and stiffen one’s todger, and thus I eagerly digested the note with a renewed sense of excitement.

The note was, in fact, a telegram from my contact at Scotland Yard, Inspector Albert Spunkleford, asking for my help in apprehending a rather deranged game hunter who was running rampant through the city with a rifle, taking pot-shots at all and sundry, while heading to the city’s zoological park.

It hardly sounded like the most thrilling of adventures, but I was pleased for any diversion from my worries, so instructed Botter to ready the carriage for our departure.

*****

BOTTER and I were welcomed to the zoo by scenes of utter confusion. There was a rather unkempt and wild-eyed man yelling at a group of police officers huddled together at the zoo’s gates, a man whom I presumed to be the hunter in question, judging by the rather tatty safari suit he was sporting and the large rifle he was wielding (it is keen observations like these which separate the common man from the great). This fellow occasionally interrupted his garbled tirade against the police to fire a shot into the brickwork or in the officers’ vague direction, after which he’d resume his rant.

Spunkleford, meanwhile, was providing valiant support by cowering behind a nearby carriage, covering his ears and rocking gently backwards and forwards.

“Ah, Inspector! I see you have things covered here…specifically, your ears,” I quipped as I snuck down beside him.

“Likely!” beamed Spunkleford, removing his hands from the side of his head and squeezing my arms with joy. “Am I ever glad to see you!”

“Most assuredly,” I replied. “So then, Inspector…what in the name of twattery is going on here, precisely?”

“Well, you see that bounder there?” Spunkleford asked, indicating towards the lunatic gunman. “That there is Colonel Cackshott. Used to be a rather respected figure, though you wouldn’t think that to look at him now. He had been in Africa on safari with a hunting party, until he was caught getting rather…ahem…intimate with the carcass of a recently-shot gazelle.”

“Heavens! Maybe he misunderstood the instruction to ‘mount’ the animals?” I responded wittily.

“Anyway,” Spunkleford continued, choosing to ignore my humourous quip. “Cackshott was sent back to England shortly thereafter, massively disgraced and incredibly humiliated. I fear the chap’s gone rather off the rails.”

“By the sounds of it, dear inspector, I do not think Cackshott was ever on the rails, or anywhere near them. So, it is safe to assume that this cad has not come to the zoo for an innocent day out, then? Clearly he is looking to shoot and or hump something, yes?”

“I believe so, yes,” Spunkleford replied, shaking his head sadly.

“Rightio,” I said as I drew my pistol from within my coat. “I think it is time to see that this necrophiliac zoophile is put down, eh?”

With that I broke cover and strode out into the street, training my pistol on Cackshott, who was busily screaming at the increasingly befuddled police officers.

“Cackshott,” I bellowed, pulling back the hammer on my gun. “‘ Tis Lord Likely – Aristocratic Adventurer and Gentle-Man of Action! The game is up! Throw down your weapon or I shall shoot you where you stand, sir!”

Cackshott swivelled round and let off a shot, which whizzed harmlessly past my head.Thank heavens Cackshott lived up to his name.

“I warned you, Cackshott,” I snarled. “No second chances.” Then, I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Then I realised: with my mind preoccupied with worry about my pet lion, I had quite forgotten to check that my pistol was loaded. I cursed under my breath, vowed to dock Botter’s pay for neglecting to remind me, and then I braced myself for Cackshott to take advantage of my folly.

Cackshott, however, seemed quite uninterested in my mistake, and was looking past and behind me, his eyes wide, his tongue licking his dry, cracked lips with considerable relish. My brow furrowed in confusion. Damnation, I thought. ‘Tis awfully rude not to pay attention when in a fight for one’s life.

Cackshott’s gaze didn’t falter from the spot behind me, and so, curiosity finally getting the better of me, I turned to see what it was that was holding the colonel’s attention.

There in the street behind me, standing in all his majestic and magnificent glory, was my precious Thundercock.

“Thundercock!” I grinned, almost overcome with elation upon seeing my proud pet once more. But before I could rejoice any further, I heard the tell-tale sound of a rifle being cocked behind me.

I spun around again and my blood froze;  Cackshott had his weapon aimed at the lion, and looked rather like he was planning to shoot Thundercock dead.

And then, no doubt, he planned to stuff him.

- Lord Likely.

Is this the end of the lion for Likely? Will Cackshott shoot Thundercok, or is he lion? Will Likely take this lion down? And how many more terrible ‘lion’ puns can we make? Be here promptly for the fantastic finale of Lord Likely and the Lost Cat to find out!