The Flat Earth Debate: The Goodfellows vs. The Rednecks
The Great Debate was set to commence in the wood-panelled grandeur of the Drones Club, where gentlemen of leisure had gathered to see whether the planet beneath their feet was a well-rounded chap or a flat and treacherous blighter.
Representing the side of rationality and good breeding: The Honourable Goodfellows, a cadre of tweedy intellectuals who had never knowingly exerted themselves, except in the pursuit of a well-mixed cocktail.
Opposing them: a rowdy delegation from the Flat Earth Freedom League of Greater Alabama and Nearby Swamps, a group of men in oversized cowboy hats, wielding Mason jars filled with suspiciously flammable liquids.
At the head of the Goodfellows' table sat Lord Montague Wifflebottom III, a man who once wrote an entire paper on planetary motion without leaving his club chair. Beside him, Percy "Stilton" Cheesewright looked on with the vague air of a man who had mislaid his trousers.
Across the table, a man called Bubba Ray stood up, his enormous belt buckle catching the candlelight like an angry solar flare.
BUBBA RAY: "Now listen here, fellas, I ain't seen no curve in all my years fishin’ on Lake Gizzard, so that tells me this Earth’s as flat as my cousin Earl’s tyre after he hit that possum."
Lord Wifflebottom blinked. "Might I gently suggest that the vastness of the Earth makes its curvature less perceptible at low altitudes?"
Bubba Ray snorted. "Fancy words won’t change facts, buddy! That’s just what Big Globe wants you to think."
Another redneck, identified only as Cooter, leaned forward. "And if the Earth’s a ball, how come we don’t fall off, huh? Gravity? Ha! That’s just a hoax cooked up by them fancy school folk to keep us buyin’ their round globes and such."
Jeeves, immaculately dressed and standing by with a discreet tray of brandy, cleared his throat. "Might I interject, sirs?"
BUBBA RAY: "Now, I don’t take kindly to bein’ interjected at, mister."
JEEVES: "I shall strive to interject with the utmost discretion, sir. If I may pose a question: if the Earth were indeed flat, one would surely expect cats to have knocked everything off the edges by now?"
A thoughtful silence ensued. The rednecks exchanged glances, furrowed brows attempting to process the magnitude of this revelation.
COOTER: "...Damn."
BUBBA RAY: "That’s a mighty fine point."
Lord Wifflebottom took a long sip of his brandy. "Jeeves, I don’t know how you do it."
JEEVES: "It is simply a matter of gentle persuasion, sir."
And thus, without breaking a sweat, the forces of reason triumphed once more—thanks, as ever, to the unflappable Jeeves.








