“Well, I must say, you smell a darn sight better than when I saw you last.”

Rhys Cranham, who had been sweeping the courtyard of The Squid and Teapot, stopped abruptly in his tracks. He recognised those deep, velvety tones at once, despite it being a voice that he had not heard for years.

He turned slowly on his heels, hardly daring to believe that it could really be…

“Mr Squash, as I live and breathe,” he said, his face wreathed in smiles. “What brings you to Hopeless again? I thought that you hated the place.”

“Oh, just he usual,” said the Sasquatch, a twinkle in his dark brown eyes. “Getting young Night-Soil Men out of trouble.”

Rhys grinned, remembering how Mr Squash had extracted him from a most unpleasant encounter with a ghoul, many years earlier. But he was young and green then, not much older than Winston Oldspot is now…

“Winston!” he exclaimed, worriedly realising what the Sasquatch had said. “Is he okay?”

“He is fine,” said Mr Squash. “He just wandered into somewhere where he shouldn’t.”

 “I had no idea that you two knew each other,” said Reggie Upton. ”I brought Mr S over, thinking that he might like to meet Philomena.”

Rhys had been so taken with meeting his old friend again that he had not noticed Reggie. This was understandable, for even Reggie’s military bearing was completely overshadowed  beside the Sasquatch’s nine foot height and eight-hundred pound bulk.

“Yes… of course,” said Rhys, uncertainly. “I’ll go and fetch her.”

Philomena had seen all sorts since coming to Hopeless, but maybe she ought to be assured, before seeing Mr Squash, that he was friendly.

Before anyone could move there was a clatter on the cobbles that sounded not dissimilar to a dinner-service falling out of a cupboard, onto concrete. Then Drury, the skeletal hound, burst around the corner, an array of freshly washed underwear in his mouth.

On seeing Mr Squash he drew up noisily, did a double-take, then bounded joyfully towards him, hurling himself at the mountainous bulk of the Sasquatch with a force that would have knocked a lesser body on its back. If anyone had doubted their friendship before, Drury’s frantically wagging tail would have put them right.

“Drury, you old rascal,” laughed Mr Squash, scratching the dog’s bony skull in the place where his ears would have been. “Are you still here? You must be almost as old as I am.”

Just then a flustered-looking Philomena Bucket appeared, brandishing a broom.

“Drury, you no good bag of bones…” she cried, then, seeing the strange tableau in front of her, drew to an abrupt halt.

“What the devil…” she began.

“Um… Philomena, meet my old friend, Mr Squash,” said Rhys.

The heavy oak door of The Squid and Teapot is usually large enough to accommodate most of the inn’s patrons, but the Sasquatch had to bend almost double to get through it. Once in, however, he could comfortably stand. The oldest part of The Squid was once a church, possibly the earliest structure built on the island. Since then, through its various incarnations, the building had been added to, both outwards, upwards and even downwards. Happily for Mr Squash the original high ceilings of the church, where the bar is now located, remain as lofty and impressive as ever.

 Mr Squash lowered himself down onto the stout wooden settle that runs along one wall of the bar. The others looked on in trepidation, mentally crossing fingers that the seat was sufficient to the task. Luck, and the joints of the settle, held and all was well.

Despite his bulk and appearance, Philomena found their guest to be as well-mannered and charming as any whom she had met, and soon felt at ease in his company.

“That’s an unusual name you have there,” she said, ignoring Rhys’ disapproving gaze.

“It is,” agreed Mr Squash, “though it’s one that I have had for quite a few years now.”

“Go on then,” said Philomena. “Spill the beans.”

Rhys glared at her again, but she pretended not to notice.

“I used to ramble all over the country, back when there were more trees and fewer roads,” began Mr Squash. “One day a young fellow, not more than a boy, took a pot-shot at me with some pea-shooter of a fire-stick… I don’t know what you call them.”

“Rifle, I imagine,” volunteered Reggie.

“Whatever it was, I admit it stung a bit and it got me riled up enough to pick him up by his neck and shake him. Then I saw the fear in his eyes, and I dropped the lad, badly twisting his ankle. I felt awful about that, and to cut a long story short, I picked him up and carried him back to the settlement where he lived. After that he would seek me out, and we became friends. I showed him the secrets of the forest and he taught me to speak English. I watched him grow into a strapping young man, who eventually married and raised a fine family. He had a daughter named Jemima, and she was the one who first called me Mr Squash.”

“But why did she call you that?” insisted Philomena.

Rhys could see that she was not going to let this go, so he gave up trying to catch her eye.

“Well, one day, after we had known each other for a while, this young fellow asks me my name. Until then a name was nothing that I had any need for, so I told him what the people in the North-West used to call me, when I lived among them.

“Sasquatch will do fine,”  I said. “ So what’s your name?”

“Daniel Boone,” he replied. “But you can call me Dan.”

Mr Squash had a dreamy, distant look in his eyes.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “But like I told you, it was little Jemima Boone who started calling me Mr Squash, because Sasquatch was too darned tricky for her to say. And it caught on, as simple as that!”

It was later that evening, and the Sasquatch had left to forage for some food.

“There is nothing suitable for me to eat on this island,” he had declared, “but I’ll be back in an hour or so to help Winston.”

“Where does he go to eat?” asked Philomena.

“Through one of his portals to somewhere far away,” said Rhys. “And don’t get excited. You couldn’t pass through even if you knew where it is.”

“He’s a strange one, for sure,” said Philomena. “And he’s really old, as well.”

“So are you,“ said Rhys.

“No I’m not. I was just born a long time ago,” she retorted. “And Daniel Boone was around years before that.”

“Those must have been the days when people had manners, and didn’t pry into other folk’s business,” said Rhys, expertly ducking to avoid the broom aimed for the back of his head.

 Author’s note: In the tale ‘About Time’, Philomena revealed to Reggie that, despite being only thirty, she was born in the year 1795. As has been previously mentioned on several occasions, Hopeless Maine has a complicated relationship with time and space.