gentlemen, please

FICTION - DON'T ASK!
My cousin Percy will be coming to visit the States this summer. Perceival J. Thudbury, Viscount Lord Duke of Slackenshire. "Lord Percy", his chums call him. 

Lord Percy lives across the Pond, you know, that's what the Brits call the Atlantic Ocean. He didn't want to arrive for Independence Day. Percy gets kind of skittish when the conversation turns to whom we are celebrating independence from. The course of human events, you know.
  
Lord Percy is a gentleman's gentleman, of course. His title requires that he keep up the appearances - polo ponies, fox hounds, livery (I think livery is a sausage, similar to a Banger). One never knows when Prince William will drop by for tea. He always keeps a few crumpets in the larder at Thudbury Castle just for such an occasion. 

Well, I'm planning a real Royal Welcome to show him that we Americans are not all those back-slapping, beer-swilling, loud, friendly, gun-toting John Goodman type characters you see in American movies. We have our gentlemen, too, and I'm going to prove it to His Lordship.  

There's a place I'd like to show him. I saw it from the bus on the way to work. (Yes, Percy, we take the bus here in the USA, too. Although most of them don't have the Upper Deck).  One visit to this place should show him once and for all that we also have gentlemen in the US. Why, yes, Your Lordship, here is where our gentlemen congregate in Milwaukee. There are enough gentlemen, in fact, that they have formed a Gentlemen's Club, and on occasion guests are welcome.


Imagine, a place where a Gentleman can feel at home. I've never been inside, but I'm sure that this club is just overflowing with politeness and Gentility. At every doorway the gentlemen tipping their tophats, "No, after you"  "No, please, after YOU" "Rather.  I INSIST". 

And surely, the gentlemen are all queuing up in the pump room, in their top-hats, adjusting their monacles, and quaffing ales while exchanging pleasantries about the weather, and relating tales from the last fox-hunt. "Tally ho, old sport!"

I didn't have time to visit the Gentlemen's Club in advance, to check it out (I have to stand in queue this week to renew my concealed carry permit).  So I rang them up (called them on the telephone).  I talked to the owner, who said his name was Seymour Heine. Fine German gent, you'd expect that in Milwaukee the Germans will lead the way to gentlemanliness, home of the Beer Barons, and all. He said of course there was a "cover charge". Certainly it's gracious, though, for them to extend temporary memberships to gentlemen and their guests - collecting a few token shillings at the door to keep out the commoners. Bully strategy, that.

And, besides the camaraderie of being with other gentlemen, the Club furnishes entertainment - folk dancing! Some of the finest dancers from Eastern Europe will present their routines. In the main hall, the Pole Dancers step through the traditional Eastern European dances of Poland.  And then, in the annex, the best of Scandinavia. Seymour said you'd have to pay more to see a Lapp Dance. No doubt the colorful costumes that Laplanders wear for their dances are quite costly, or quite dear as Lord Percy would say. But how often does my old chum visit?  Nothing too good for his Lordship on his occasional visit. I'm sure everything will be just as smashing as Seymour described it. I can't wait for our Gentlemen's Night Out.  Percy will be so surprised...