"Stop it, Jeffrey."

"Stop what, Susie."

"Obsessing over whether 'a' or 'the' makes the line funnier."

"One wrong little word can kill the comedy, Susie."

"Not with me, Jeffrey - I could read from the list of Huntingdonshire cabmen and still raise a horse laugh."

"I think that may be a joke too far for here, Susie."

"As is a lot of our stuff, Jeffrey, but we can't do anything about it now, so let's expend our energy on some pre-publicity and see if we can waylay a few new unsuspecting readers."

"Okay, Susie, but we shouldn't be too blatant about it. How are we going to sneak in our self-promotion this time?"

"Any more commas gone missing?"

"Not so you'd notice - we can't play that card again."

"We could trump it by having purge of colons: I don't like how they appear on the page: I find them very off-putting: they bring the eye to a juddering halt: I much prefer the dash - it maintains the comic flow."

"We'll be looking for pinheads in a wordstack, Susie. I banished colons early on - and only brought one back for a guest appearance as a German visual pun in chapter 73."

"Actually, Jeffrey, you may be slipping in too much of the esoteric stuff."

"I thought you enjoyed it, Susie."

"I do, Jeffrey, but with all the hidden jokes and wordplay, we must sometimes read like Finnegan's Rainbow by the Irish chappie."

"Joyce?"

"That's the one - William Joyce - Lord Haw-Haw - he was almost as funny as we are."

"He worked for the Germans, and they hung him, Susie."

"They've no sense of humour, Jeffrey."

"We're indulging in superfluous banter again, Susie."

"We always do, Jeffrey - it's another of our many failings. As are all the local references and Lanky dialect. We've added nearly 2,000 words to Microsoft's dictionary - no wonder we have so few American followers."

"It's a good job they can't hear our accents; they'd need subtitles."

"But they loved the Beatles' talk, Jeffrey."

"I don't know why, Susie. Scouse isn't music to our ears, especially after our latest encounter - which will probably lose us any fans we have in Liverpool."

"Fair dos, Jeffrey - there was a dreadful Scottish stereotype in 'Uneasy Money'."

"If we carry on at this rate, Susie, we won't have any audience left."

"I think we've been pretty even-handed - after all, our villains have to come from somewhere."

"Well, at least we haven't done any American bashing so far."

"Or advertising - enough of being subtle, Jeffrey, let's get down to brass tacks and do some self-promotion."

http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/8941/susie-and-jeffrey...

"We may have left it too late, Susie - catching up on 112 chapters is a daunting prospect. If I'd known we were going to be an endless series, I'd have split it up into separate books."

"It's only twelve days in our time, though."

"I think it's best not to mention that; the high incident rate and non-stop cross-talk gives some folk a headache."

"The smart thing to do would be to relabel our new offering chapter 1, change our name, and present it as a new story, Jeffrey. That way more people would go and have a look at it just out of curiosity."

"A cunning plan, Susie - what a pity we aren't devious enough to put it into practice."

"That's the story of our lives, Jeffrey - always playing with a straight bat."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Susie - ours is a moral, uplifting tale."

"Exactly, Jeffrey - now tell the folks what other treats lie in store for them."

"Let's see - we don't do angst or proper shopping. But we do change clothes and names a lot."

"And don't forget all the running for our lives and my expert driving."

"Assorted vehicles, people, and animals come to sticky ends, while we banter on regardless at the drop of a pun."

"We haven't mentioned our principal MacGuffin, your alter-ego, Denise - remember where we are."

"Yes, we made a promising TG start, which soon descended into a cartoon comedy double act."

"Hang on, Jeffrey, we're as sophisticated as Bugs Bunny in our repartee. Noel Coward, himself, would have swapped his silk kimono and his 'Very flat, Norfolk' for my 'Where's the monkey?'."

"And we do have hidden depths, Susie, and we are a true romance."

"A pink and black comedy adventure, Jeffrey - that sums us up. You never know what's going to happen next."

"Actually, Susie, striving to write cliff-hanging chapters, and then posting them all in one go is a bit of a wasted effort, especially as they can't even serve as page turners."

"And our novel approach doesn't get us much exposure - in fact, we regularly get swamped. Perhaps we should trickle out our exploits a chapter at a time, Jeffrey."

"I like to present the story as an artistic whole, Susie, and there's also the fact that I'm frightened of putting too much strain on our regular commenters. I'd feel lost without their support."

"Me too, Jeffrey, so let's thank the faithful few in the only way we can, with more high jinks and low crimes. Get back to work on those 'a's and 'the's."

"That's all for now, folks."

"We'll see you soon in 'Double Trouble'."