Chapter CLV of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, should have told us what happened at the gala party thrown for the Japanese ambassador, Walt Dropo, at Lady Margo Cargo’s opulent drawing room. Instead, we are treated to several recipes utilizing Frothee and sauerkraut, none of which seems particularly appealing. We have to move on to Chapter CLVI to get to the party.
With the members of the Scurveyshire Ladies’ Garden Club done up as middle-aged geishas dressed like cowgirls, and square dance music played inexpertly on traditional Japanese instruments, the only hope of making this event a success lies in Willis Twombley’s strategy of getting Dropo-san roaring drunk as soon as possible. This is accomplished with terrifying ease.
“Now I demonstrate my skill with sword!” he bellows, clumsily drawing his samurai sword and laying about the decorations. Crusty the butler disapproves. Everyone else panics. Dropo-san blunders out of the house, crashing through the unopened French window and out into the night. No one seems disposed to follow him.
“I say! This is a disaster!” exclaims Lord Jeremy Coldsore.
“Guess we better catch him before he beheads somebody,” says Twombley. “Heck, this never happened at any of the parties at my royal palace.” He still thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. Flourishing his six-gun, he sets out after the Japanese ambassador. Jeremy follows. It would be a regrettable incident if Twombley were to shoot the Emperor’s favorite cousin.
It’s a dark and moonless night. Jeremy immediately loses sight of his friend. Suddenly, several shots ring out. With a sense of foreboding, Jeremy follows the sound of the gunshots–to find Twombley standing a safe distance from the vicar’s backyard wading pool.
“Too late, ol’ hoss!” says the American. “I got here jist in time to see poor Whatsisname disappearin’ under the pool, still swingin’ his sword. There was big slimy tentacles wrapped all around him, and my shootin’ didn’t do no good. He’s a goner.”
They sit down, sighing, on an antique marble bench. “I shall be hard put to explain this, old boy,” says Jeremy.
They are joined by Constable Chumley, who offers them a pull from the flask he carries under his helmet. “I throck it were mickle gree,” the constable remarks philosophically. He has been longing, for years, to deliver a philosophical remark, and now that he has the opportunity, makes the most of it.
The plot thickens as if Corn Starch were stirred into it. 🙂
Re your last paragraph: I’ve been under the impression that ALL Constable Chumley’s comments have been philosophical! 🙂
Did I miss something between recipes? The vicar’s wading pool seems to have become a waiting pool. What is it waiting for exactly? More victims? 🙂
I see you were confused by this slight typographical error. Ms. Crepuscular was furious. “You are turning my literary art into low comedy!” she tells me in an email. “For two cents, I’d come over there and give you a ‘waiting pool’ you wouldn’t forget!”
So I’ve fixed it.
Too bad you fixed it. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time – tears rolling down my cheeks! 🙂
So the story has gone from the Hallmark Channel to the SyFy Channel. Horror movies sell better these days than romance one anyway.