Voiceover : England, 1747.
(Slow pan across idyllic countryside. We see a stately eighteenth-century coach galloping down a dirt road. Suddenly a sharp voice rings out.)
Me (Dennis Moore) : Stand and deliver!
(The coach slows down and wobbles, as its driver fumbles for his pistol.)
Drop that gun!
(A gunshot.)
Coachman : Aaagghh!
(A female scream. The driver falls limply off the coach.)
Me : Let that be a warning to you all.
(The coach is by now completely stopped. And I, Dennis Moore, a highwayman with long brown hair and a black mask upon a tall horse, brandish two pistols and look threatening.)
Me : You move at your peril, for I have two pistols here. I know one of them isn't loaded any more, but the other one is, so that's one of you dead for sure. Or just about for sure anyway. It certainly wouldn't be worth your while risking it because I'm a very good shot. I practice every day... Well, not absolutely every day, but most days in the week. I expect I must practice, oh, at least four or five times a week... or more, really, but some weekends, like last weekend, there really wasn't the time, so that brings the average down a bit. I should say it's a solid four days' practice a week... At least... I mean...
(The fairly well-to-do-looking inhabitants of the coach peer out at me. They look a bit lost.)
Me : I reckon I could hit that tree over there. Er... the one just behind that hillock. The little hillock, not the big hillock, the little hillock on the left ... ah, you see the three trees over there? Well, the third from the left and back a bit - that one - I reckon I could hit that four times out of five ... on a good day. Say with this wind ... say, say, seven times out of ten ...
Squire : What, that tree there?
Me : Which one?
Squire : The big beech with the sort of bare branch coming out of the top left.
Me : No, no, no, not that one.
Girl : No, no, he means the one over there. Look, you see that one there.
Squire : Yes.
Girl : Well now, go two along to the right.
Coachman : Just near that little bush.
Girl : Well, it's the one just behind it.
Squire : Ah! The elm.
Me : No, that's not an elm. An elm's got sort of great clumps of leaves like that. That's either a beech, a hornbeam, or, ah ...
Parson : A larch?
Girl : No, no.
Me : No, that was another series. No, what's the... the one like that with the leaves that are sort of regularly veined and the veins go right out with sort of um...
Girl : Serrated?
Me : ...serrated edges?
Parson : A willow!
Me : Yes.
Parson : That's nothing like a willow.
Me : Well, it doesn't matter, anyway. I can hit it seven times out of ten, that's the point.
Parson : Never a willow.
Me : Shut up! It's a hold-up, not a bleeding botany lesson. Now, no false moves please. I want you to hand over all the lupins you've got.
Squire : Lupins?
Me : Yes, lupins. Come on, come on!
Parson : What do you mean, lupins?
Me : Don't try to play for time.
Parson : I'm not! You mean... the flower 'lupin?'
Me : Yes, that's right.
Squire : But we haven't got any lupins.
Girl : Honestly!
Me : Look, my fine friends. I happen to know that this is the Lupin Express.
Squire : You must be out of your tiny mind.
(The others nod assent. I am less than pleased.)
Me : Get out the coach!
(They shuffle about awkwardly.)
Me : Come on, come on!
(I point my pistols and they all dejectedly file out of the coach. I reach into the coach and pull out a small handful of brightly colored flowers of the bluebonnet family.)
Me : Just as I thought!
Squire : Damn!
Girl : Oh, here you are.
(They all reach into their personal stashes and produce a large vaseful of the desired flora.)
Me : In a bunch, in a bunch!
Squire : Sorry.
Me : Come on, Concorde!
(I hop upon my horse, lupins in hand, and gallop off into the forest. A chorus sings my praise to the tune of an old "Robin Hood" theme...)
Chorus : (sings)
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,
galloping through the sward,
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,
and his horse Concorde.
He steals from the rich, he gives to the poor,
Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore.
(As the song ends I arrive at a small, beat-up-looking cottage and hand the Lupins to a bewildered peasant.)
Me : Here you are. I'll be back.
(I hop back on my horse and ride off.)
(CAPTION: 'THE END')
