Bob Servant by Bob Servant

filled my mouth with water and then spat it out in surprise when he said the price. Then I did the ‘get really angry and ask why they’re treating you like this’ move. Then I did the ‘I’m walking away, I’m walking away’ and walk really slowly until they call you back. Then I did the Woe Is Me and pretend to cry one-two. By the end Safehands was on the ropes and wrapped up in my web of tricks. We met at £496 as long as I paid cash.
    I had a week to get the money and I came up with the fairest way of raising it. Frank kicked up a bit of a fuss, as I knew he would, even though I pointed out that selling off most of the house’s furniture would instantly double the size of the rooms and to double the size of the rooms in any other way would cost a fortune.
    He was particularly difficult about his mum’s antique piano but,like I told him, neither of us could play a note and his mum would have to have pretty long arms to bang out a tune seeing as she now lived in the Goodbye And All The Very Best Nursing Home in Stobswell. I opened the windows and said, ‘Shall we see if she can reach the piano, Frank?’ and did the cupping the ear thing and finally he crumbled and admitted I was right. He looked a bit down, so I cheered him up by telling him I had two big surprises for him later that day, which was a bit daft because I didn’t have any surprises for him at all and he’d almost definitely have settled for one.
    But you don’t get to where I am in life without being quick on your feet, so once the furniture cowboys had come and picked up the gear and given me my £500 I told Frank to get his jacket on and took him down to Vissochi’s Ices on the harbour. ‘Are we going to Vissochi’s, Bob, are we going to Vissochi’s?’ he kept asking and he nearly exploded when we arrived and I ordered him a treble scooper which he’s not really supposed to have because of his excitement problem.
    We went and sat on a bench and looked out over the harbour. I was having a great think, mostly about the window-cleaning round and how much money I would make, and then Frank interrupted it by asking me what his second surprise was. It must have been the view or the fresh air but I took a deep breath and said that he was going to be my number two on the window-cleaning round.
    He didn’t say anything so I turned round and I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy. He had this big smile. He looked a bit like he was going to cry, and he had ice cream all over his face. I looked at Frank, sitting there at the harbour while the sun set and the swans quacked away, and I thought to myself – ‘Oh sweet Jesus what have I done?’
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    39 See
The Dundee Courier
, 5 April 1986 – ‘
Local Man Banned From Broughty Greengrocer
(“He’d stand at the counter making comments about the vegetables and weeping with laughter”)’. See the
Daily Express
17 May 1991 – ‘
Major Pleasure Promised to Female Cabinet Members’
. See
The Times
, 16 November 1991 – ‘
Prime Minister Anticipates “Major Election”’.

19
Frank’s Falls
    1970, 1971 and 1972 were big years for me. I learnt a lot about life, I learnt a lot about business and, believe it or not, I learnt new ways in which Frank was an idiot. Traditionally, Frank had shown himself to be an idiot with things to do with his mind and his mouth but he pulled out a whole new twist over those years by showing me that slapstick could be a bad thing.
    I’ve always loved slapstick and I still do. If you were to walk past my house on a Saturday teatime you’d be forgiven for thinking Billy Connolly was giving me a one-to-one or Del Boy was in here doing the falling through the bar routine over and over again but in fact it’s just me watching the famous television show
You’ve Been Framed
.
    I’m not sure if you