days in contemplation of his past behavior. "Am I gaining or losing
ground with Arissa?" he asked himself. "Rather had she said, 'Get
lost' before she said, 'You must be kidding,' for as it stands, I
can't say I'm making much progress."
But "Steadfast" was probably Sir Percival's middle name (or his
uncle's middle name, anyway), so the knight decided to approach
Arissa yet again. After all, Arissa seemed to be pretty okay,
and Sir Percival wanted a date. In a few days, then, Arissa
heard a familiar question in a familiar voice: "Arissa, sweetheart,
let me ensconce you in my carriage and take you on a date." To
which Arissa replied, "Sorry Perce, I'm busy. I've got to
wash my hair."
To which the knight: "Well, when could you go then?"
To which Arissa: "Well, I'll be busy for the next ten years. I
mean, I've got stuff to do, forsooth."
Well, our hero was getting a bit despondent about all this, and for
sure his friends weren't helping much. Far from their giving him
encouragement, their laughter rang so constantly in Sir Percival's
head that he began to wonder if he was still quite sane. And not
a few of his friends hinted here and there that psychiatric
consultation might be useful to the knight, to get him over his
ridiculous interest in the agreeable Arissa.
About this time it so happened that as Sir Percival was on his way
to visit Sir Wishful for a nice dinner of trout and onions, he quite
unexpectedly came upon Arissa, lovely as ever, sitting near the
village waterfall and picking her teeth. Almost out of habit, Sir
Percival spoke: "Arissa, sugar, would you like to go out with
me sometime?"
To which Arissa: "Oh, Perce, didn't I tell you I was busy?"
To which Sir Percival: "Yeah, fair one, but I thought maybe you'd
had a cancellation or something."
To which Arissa: "Well, if I did have a cancellation, I wouldn't
fill it up with you. Besides, what would we do?"
To which Sir Percival: "We could go to dinner."
To which Arissa: "Like where, ifay?"
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