III.

"You ever were one to fight only when it was to your advantage," snarled Saruman. "You know I haven't a pointy hat!" He experimentally whirled around, his stiffened sleeves whipping like a food-processor on 'chop.'

Gandalf ducked again and hopped forward as his fellow wizard lost momentum, poinking him in the derriere with the tip of the hat in question.

"Yoi!" Saruman complained, a shower of starch-flakes poufing off his robes as he attempted to whack his sleeves backwards.

"Gluph!" Gandalf responded, getting a starchy slab in his face. He staggered back as a random clothespin belatedly spun off of Saruman's recently laundered attire adding insult to injury by bouncing off his nose.

Inspired, Saruman grabbed a basket of wooden clothespins and began flinging them at his adversary. Gandalf stumbled over them, trying to get close enough to utilize his hat again, failing miserably as Saruman added a length of clothesline to the mix and whipped it around Gandalf's feet.

Gandalf's hat spun away and impaled itself in the wooden door as Saruman began spinning him around like a yo-yo.

"Er...." a lackey mumbled from the doorway, eying the still-quivering hat near the knob. "Is this not a good time?"

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