The Adventures of Reginald McFisticuffs, Part 1

So this is the first Reginald "adventure." It's the odd-one-out in that it's very short; all the others are painfully long. But it did start the formula of mundane or depressing contemplations juxtaposed with surrealism.

Though he did his best to hide it, Professor Reginald C. McFisticuffs III could not help feeling that his contempt for the young up-and-comer might be somewhat apparent...

The news was not all bad, however, as shortly thereafter the foreman of the build crew came down to inform him that construction of the dapper new top hat out of McFisticuffs's own hair was nearly complete.