In the Sweet Dry and Dry

A comic satire follows a newspaper editor and an eccentric agent from the Corporation for the Perpetuation of Happiness as their small town is enlivened by a string of whimsical episodes: an unexpected mint julep delivery, a thermos mistaken for an infernal machine in City Hall, gooseberry bombs, romantic treachery, and election tumult. The plot proceeds through episodic vignettes—newsroom antics, civic panic, a motley pilgrimage of drinkers dubbed the Decanterbury pilgrims, and a wartime backdrop—blending farce with social observation and culminating in shifting alliances and ironic reflections on public ardor, civic ritual, and human foibles.