Chapter 1

The mayor rushed to the side of the ship to heave out the big meal he had eaten just before he came.  The crew laughed!  Michael enjoyed watching the mayor in his plight.  He turned to the captain and said some cutting words about him behind his back.  The mayor, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, wobbled back toward Michael and the captain.

“Make no mistake,” the mayor begged, “I appreciate – – – but it’s kind of hard to – to -” and the mayor held his stomach again. “Ohhh!” he moaned as he ran back to the rail.

“Maybe we better take His Honor off,” the first mate suggested.

“What?  And deprive him of the delights of a tour below?  Not at all.  Now let’s get ‘His Honor’ below.”

As they grabbed his arms, he became startled.  “What – what – what are you doing?!  Where are you taking me?!”

“To see the cargo Mayor.  To see the cargo.  First you must pay your devoirs – your respects to this grand ol’ queen of the sea for carrying a load for you, then we’ll leave.”

Michael suavely turned and led the way down to his stately cabin. It was no easy feat for the sailors to get the mayor below deck; but once this was accomplished, he followed along behind Michael who was the example of grace and ease on a swaying ship.  The mayor awkwardly swayed and tilted with each step he took.  He held his wambling stomach with one hand and the walls with the other.

“Having a hard time keeping your balance Mayor?”

“This better be worth it!”  the mayor griped.

Michael had a big crate, which was already opened, placed on the floor of his cabin.  “Sit yourself down,” he prompted.  The mayor wrapped his pudgy hand around the arm of a rounded-back wooden chair and eased himself ever so gently onto it.

“Drink?”

“Ohhh – – – wohhh – – – Nothing for me thank you.  I don’t think – I – need – anything  else wobbling around within me – while I am wobbling on this ship!”

Michael poured himself a drink and walked over to the crate.  The mayor felt a little nauseous seeing the contents of Michael’s glass move this way and that.  His eyes seemed to turn and move around in his head.

“This one,”  Michael announced as he slapped a bolt,  “is going to make you the ‘Man of the Hour’ if not the ‘Man of the Year’.”

The mayor tried to snap out of feeling sick.  Michael put his glass down and took a large pair of scissors from a cabinet drawer.  Slightly leaning over the crate, he cut from the fabric, a long strip for the mayor to sample.  “Feel that,” he invited with a pride-drenched tone, and he handed it to the mayor who had his hand outstretched in readiness.  As the mayor took the piece, his fingers moved slowly over the strip and his eyes sucked in its beauty. He gave Michael a momentary appreciative glance.

The mayor drooled over the fabric.  “This is the finest weave and texture I have ever felt!  The finest in my life I tell you!”  Then like iron drawn to magnet, his eyes fell on the fabric again.  “This might even help me to the presidency, and you – to a cabinet post if I make it,” the mayor muttered with delusive belief.

Michael laughed with a derisive jest.  “Then both of our political futures lie in your tailor’s hands!”

And Michael walked back to the crate and lifted from it another bolt of costly brocade.  “See this fabric Your Honor, as he cut a strip and handed it to him?  “I’d wager that the emperor is pulling out teeth and nails right about now.””

The    mayor looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? This was the emperor’s favorite. I promised just about everything to get it, but he still wouldn’t part with it, for anything!  Do you know how many people I had to bribe to get this?  Well – let me tell you,” he went on, “I had to get these particular bolts loaded as fast as I could then beat it out of the harbor before the emperor learned I had them.  I never have fancied myself without fingernails and teeth.”

The mayor couldn’t have cared less who suffered or who didn’t.  His eyes could have popped from his head as he examined the cloth.  “Do I get a bolt for me?

“Why of course Your Honor.  This is just the kind of gift you can give to the ladies to get gifts back, don’t you think?”

“Yes, yes, oh yes… favors for favors.”

Michael watched with amusement as the mayor puffed with confidence from the overwhelming anticipation of his desire being satisfied.  As the mayor fondled the swatch, Michael just watched. ‘Another fish on the hook’.