Another Mysterious Stranger (‘Oy, Rodney’)

“Beyond Vegetables” proved to be a cultural disaster, her cooking show was canceled after the first episode, and Violet Crepuscular has finally written Chapter CCCXXXI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

A mysterious stranger who looks like Broderick Crawford has turned up in Scurveyshire, to seek Lady Margo Cargo’s hand in marriage (1). Meanwhile, Lady Margo is celebrating because she has found her missing glass eye. It was under her pillow all along.

“When I was young,” she confides to the American adventurer, Willis Twombley, whom she thinks is the same person as her current betrothed, Lord Jeremy Coldsore, “my mother told me that if I put my glass eye under my pillow at night, the Eye Fairy would come and leave me a shilling.”

“But then you’d be short an eye, l’il darlin’,” says Twombley.

“The fairy never took the eye,” explains Lady Margo. “Even so, half the time I forgot I’d put the eye under my pillow and I’d have to do without it for several days.” She sighs deeply. “I can never remember the things I forget,” she laments.

“You will notice a footnote pertaining to the mysterious stranger who uncannily resembles Broderick Crawford,” Ms. Crepuscular writes, in an aside to the reader. “This has been added for a scholarly purpose. Footnotes are meant to be read, dear reader, so don’t forget to read this one!”

There being nothing much more to this chapter, we shall advance to the bottom of the page and read the footnote.

“1) Among the stranger’s descendants are Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator ousted by Fidel Castro. This explains President Batista’s fleeting resemblance to the America actor who used to star in Highway Patrol.”

So we can stop wondering about it.

Chapter CCCXXXII has been postponed due to bad weather.