What with all the computer agita yesterday–and more this morning, on the other machine–I thought I might dip into Oy, Rodney. And this is what I read.
The vicar’s smart-aleck nephew, Desmond Wiggly, goes out to the backyard wading pool and doesn’t return. There are drag marks leading under the pool. Constable Chumly is summoned. He examines the scene and remarks, “I tell ‘ee, them’s a right rawn figgety shawm,” and declines to investigate further. There is serious talk of replacing him with someone who can speak recognizable English.
Lord Jeremy Coldsore, meanwhile, realizes that the only way he can stave off ruin and bankruptcy is to marry Lady Margo Cargo, the richest widow in Scurveyshire. As a pretext for seeing her, he returns her lost glass eye. She invites him into her parlor and serves him extremely unpalatable biscuits baked by her grandmother in Bedlam. His appetite is not improved as she pops the one glass eye out of the socket, wipes off the one he has returned to her, and pops it in.
“Surely, Lord Jeremy, you must have had another reason for coming here to see me,” she coos. Lady Margo is big on cooing.
Jeremy nods: for him, this is the moment of truth. But all he can manage to say is “Abba-dabba-gmmph.”
Meanwhile there is a new mysterious stranger in the neighborhood. This one looks like Ralph Meeker. No one knows what he’s doing there.
Lord Jeremy shouldn’t try to talk with his mouth full of unpalatable biscuits. They appear to have stuck to his palate. Or is this just a ploy to keep himself from revealing the State secrets with which he’s been entrusted? I can hardly wait for the next installment. (Too bad I can no longer remember what happened in the first installment.)
I don’t think Violet Crepuscular remembers much of it, either.
The plot sickens. 🙂
Ralph Meeker? Wasn’t he a speech writer for JFK or something? Didn’t he get fired by the White House for being a Peeping Tom?
No, he was an actor. A big guy with a sort of irritated look on his face.