Guillotine Salesman.
A French Salesman is attempting to sell a guillotine to an English Executioner.
E : What's it called again?
F : A Guillotine Monsieur.
E: Don't like the look of it I'm afraid.
F: It's our very latest model Monsieur, "The Louis XVI Special Edition".
E: It's a damn sight bigger than my trusty axe. At the end of my day I can just give it a wipe, slip it under my arm and I'm off home to the wife. Can't do that with this brute can I?
F: But here you have the very height of efficiency Monsieur. How long does it take you through a daily workload of 20 necks?
E: 5 hours or so. Depends how long they drag their final words out for. We had a stutterer last week, I was still here at 7 o'clock at night.
F: And your arms after dispatching the 20? They ache a little, yes?
E: Bloody agony.
F: With this little beauty you just pull this rope, just feel how soft that is on your hands Monsieur – feel it Monsieur, feel it. Imported from the Indies that rope. Impressive yes?
English man grunts an affirmative.
F: Anyway you pull on the rope, let go and whloap.
FX Sound of guillotine falling and stopping with a thud .
F: With this you can get through your 20 necks in a matter of minutes and then be home for a little bit of hanky panky with the wife. Or maybe, if you're like us French, with someone else's wife.
E: What about maintenance?
F: We do an excellent maintenance package Monsieur. We do a full service after the first 3000 necks. We check the runners for knicks, replace the blade and just generally give the whole machine a complete once over.
E: Now much?
F: Listen, don't spread it around but I'm trying to break into the market over here, so I'll do you something a little special.
E: How special?
F: Well look, this is a demonstrator model – only 32 necks on the clock. Look, it should be 150. I'll give you a full days training, complete with a couple of our last Aristos to try your hand on. All yours for eighty notes.
E: How much?
F: Seventy?
E: Forty?
F: Sixty?
E: Fifty?
F: Fifty five and I'll throw in the vegetable slicer attachment?
E: Done.
END
Thanks Paul. Yeah as it happens I've got about three versions of this sketch - this one, a topical one and a short one I've Sent off to Watson's Wind Up
