ATDTDA (14): Eehhnnyyhh, 397-401

[Paul Nightingale]

The Chums return with echoes of Frankstuff: messages and flying. Previously,
Frank has been dependent on what others tell him, messages of one kind or
another, eg in Denver "keeping his ears open up and down the street" (274),
or the brief scene with Booth Virbling that sends him to Telluride
(278-279). Other examples follow, most obviously Merle's input. Or the
"short, intense dreams nearly always about Deuce Kindred" (377). On flying,
of course, the scene with Estrella/Estrella, "taken out of himself" etc
(392-393). And now Ch29 opens with "messages arriv[ing] from Hierarchy" etc,
leading to: "One midnight, with the usual absence of ceremony ." etc (397).
Frank soared, either hallucinating or led by El Espinero "higher than the
last roofless wall ." etc (391).

The Chums, however, are reminded only of their exclusion from "whatever
pyramid of offices might be towering in the mists above" (397). Plug
delivers one message in "a grease-stained envelope" and another with his
casual reference to "d' toime machine"; the former is forgotten as the
latter kick-starts the narrative (and as any good paranoid knows, nothing is
ever that casual). Plug has emerged from the list of "usual" messengers that
opens the chapter, but he refuses to retire. Randolph refers to "the single
sheet the youth had delivered" (398), but the message that interests
everyone is elsewhere, Plug's "curious remark thus some coded invitation to
pursue the topic with him". The section begins with a reminder of hierarchy,
which has attended the Chums since the opening page of the novel. Also
attendant throughout has been a series of challenges to the established
order, and Plug it seems is another representative. As has been the case
since his first appearance, Lindsay emphasises cultural anxiety: "If his
preference in beverages proves as inexpensive as his reading habits ." etc.

And so to the Lollipop Lounge and the Templesque "chanteuse of some ten
summers" (399), just a couple of pages after Plug's reference to "Chicago
ten yeeuhz ago" (397), all of which makes Angela 'as old as' (perhaps a
marker of the 'age' of) a narrative beginning with the Chicago Fair.
Interesting also that Darby has the hots for her just after he has been
identified as Ship's Legal Officer with a hunger for litigation (398). The
final sentence of the section notes that she "had so compellingly claimed
Darby's attention" (401); and it is certainly the case that he is
distracted, interrupted by Chick when he starts to interrogate Plug (400).
On the other hand it is Darby who is sufficiently alert to emphasise Plug's
use of the definite article: ". the way you said 'the time machine'", the
first time this point has been made explicitly.