You are on the yacht Nirvana, somewhere between islands. It's well past midnight and the [deck chairs] on the deck outside are empty, but the five of you are still engaged in bright and dazzling conversation. The bald croupier waits patiently at the table and the seal-like cocktail waiter polishes glasses a little way off. At that moment, your hostess sweeps into the lounge, dripping with jewels, with a snap of gloved fingers to summon more champagne. I just lur-ve these evenings under the stars, dah-links, she purrs. But now you must all indulge me. We must have stories. Each one of you must tell me of your most memorable night in the tropics. Maybe it will be fraught with excitement, maybe it will be a little naughty, but whatever it is, I insist upon sophistication.

If Trout Montague had been dirigible, he would have chosen that very moment at which to burst. But a balloon he was not. Instead he was pisciform, and being such was engineered to dangle from nothing except an unbarbed #8. The Louis XIV crystal chandelier was anything but a fishhook. He let go ...

SLAP

“Eugh!”, yelped Ms GB as she fished the fish from the vasty depths of her embonpoint. “But I commaaanded sophistication”, she whined holding the offending creature firmly by the tail at arm’s length.

Flapping desperately, Trout Montague struggled momentarily to recover the capacity for speech. “Sophistication is just a posh way of saying confusion” he blurted, as the blood returned from his head.

“If I may ...”, honked the sea-lion, as it approached the scene wielding a poaching pan and a fish slice that appeared so quickly as to imply that he’d been waiting for this precise scenario for a while.

“No you may not” cut in Ms GB, “I like this one, he’s got ... élan” she continued. “And relax Doctor, you can put that down.”

Dr Alex Ashman, having spent the entire cruise to date hatching a plot to rip open the hostess’s bodice and interrogate the underlying flesh with inter alia his stethoscope, dropped his Gladstone bag almost as heavily as his shoulders. The sea-lion meanwhile muttered something arctic and returned to the task of adding smears where previously there had been none.

“Indeed th-the fir fir fish has a puh-puh-point”, stammered Professor Dmitiri in the fashion of a dusty old academic, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose in the fashion of someone with a library of pornography.

“Oh absolutely he does, it was digging into my left ...”

“I mee-m-m-m-meean, M-m-m-ademois-selle, that whereas you have d-d-demanded s-s-s-sophistication, you may expect to receive complexity. It is the way of the s-s-s-sophists.”

The sea-lion rolled his eyes. Hijacking had become so passe. First the boat, now the plot. Damn that salmonid, at least the Somali pirates kept themselves to themselves up on the bridge.

Beatrice stopped sucking her pipe and studied the stowaway.

“Oi’ve 'ad wan av doze weasel cahd whaen oi wus a-charge de Locky Star, wrigglin' raun in me draahs. An' if it wasn’ as onloikly as a sea-loyan in a toxeedoh” she said looking askance at the dumb waiter “oi’d say 'e’s de seem beast.”

Tweaked, Trout Montague was not one to forget an admirable rear and eyed the woman with the asymmetric gold lame on her sleeve who once upon a time had been only too glad to have him assist her with a jolly roger. She’d come a long way, he reminisced ambiguously.

“Wud yeh be 'avin’ a drank, yon cahd?” asked Beatrice, quizzical, lifting a pint glass of stout to her lips, leaving a foamy white mustache, which looked more distinguished than the usual fuzzy black one.

“Yes. A dry martini. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“How tiresome” murmured the sea-lion.

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

“I’ll try so very hard not to forget.”

"Gosh, that's certainly a drink," said Danny Bogus, “get me one would you, and don’t step on that ...”

HONK

... car horn”.

“Bajaysus, t’be shure dass de seem cahd al' roi’. Oi cud never forget dat scrotal tong av 'is.”

Miss Bobley was equally agog and ... a gog, recollecting a fish in a fissure in the mountains high above Ebbw Vale. “Y’ve had hym snyffyng around my parts too, ysn’t yt”, she added at once aquiver and a-sing-song. She took a long calming draught from the tankard of Brains Dark.

The bald croupier meanwhile suddenly became preoccupied with adjusting his woggle, unnecessarily sliding it up and down his neckerchief.

“If yoo're nae gonnae lit meh dissect heem, can we please gie back tae th' gaym?” piped Doctor Alex, affronted by the attention given to the gatecrasher, and returning to face the green baize.

There was apparent agreement the manifestation of which was that they all took seats around the croupier’s table. The croupier himself was shuffling feverishly as if to demonstrate that the triangular patch sewn onto his sleeve was truly earned.

“Roit, thank ye Ladies 'n Gentlemen, ship rules apploys, blahck tooze 'n won-oyed jacks’re woyld. As Oy remembers Darkter Alex here bays th'ar’sole ...”

“Ah say ...”

“The ... gentleman ... is c-c-correct” added the Professor, “... you’re last, Doctor”.

“But the fesh shood be tha anal sphnctah, he’s tha late-cummah.”

As if choreographed both Miss Bobley and Rear-Admiral Beatrice nodded at the secondary rather than the primary assertion. Likewise, Miss GB smiled coquettishly at the Trout.

“Och, thes is heluva disruptif. Ah don’t want tae lit heem play.”

“Oh come come Dr Alex”, soothed Ms GB, reaching across to touch his forearm, “I’m sure the Trout will ... play nicely”. She beamed.

“Et's nae reit ye ken. Ah've bin oan thes damn shep since dee wan. An he jest jumps un an uff agen whenairver th'whay gits craggy.”

“Dr, I assure you that when the time comes, when the well-endowed lady’s tonsils are titillating, the Trout will withdraw. Won’t you Trout?” Ms GB shrivelled up her nose conspiratorially.

“It’s in...”

“Your drink”, interjected the sea-lion, spilling spirit clumsily all over the baize, and Trout’s cards.

“Oh that’s a shame, look you”, sang Miss Tibley Bobley looking at her own hand.

“An' a waste av gran' draink”, added Beatrice, vying with the Trout to suck the moisture out of the green felt.

“Roit, that's buggered it, yee’ve scattered n’abroad, propah jahb, you useless circus creature. Always bein' fanty-sheen with yerr drinks, sputtlin’ about, rustlin' up bobby-dazzles fer the guests, an what with pretendin you’ve got ‘ands. Give me a cup o' tea and a clo’’ed cream scone, could you? Nope. Gotta be fant-cy. Well Oi quit, ‘ere an now. Oi'm throwin' in the towel.”

A towel landed on the card-table. The trout and Rear-Admiral Beatrice continued bobbing away underneath.

“Prima-donna”, tooted the sea-lion.

Ms GB sobbed.

The sea-lion retrieved the towel revealing only the seaman. Rear-Admiral Beatrice wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Mmm t’be shure, oi loiks a sloice a Cahd, sloik sockin on a fisherman’s frehrnd”, she said, apparently sate.

The sea-lion attempted to restore some dignity by wrapping it about his person, only to be thwarted by geometry.

“Th-that’ll s-s-still be the way of the s-s-s-sophists ...”, pointed out Professor Dmitiri.

“Euclid”, spurted Danny Bogus.

“You what?” replied Pinniped.

“Ooh, how s-s-s - spthpspthpspth - sophisticated ... can you deal Mr Pinniped? Someone here’s got to be the ah-hem-hole.”

“Certainly Madam. Let us find out who is to leave the ship.”