Suddenly we find ourselves at Chapter DXIV of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy Rodney… without a trace of Chapter DXIII. We wonder what was in it.
“I am not to blame for chapters missing from my book,” she confides in the reader. “All faxaltation aside, the important thing is that Lord Jeremy, having made his hairbreadth escape from Mom’s Dungeon, now finds himself back in the familiar embrace of Coldsore Hall.” She hastens to add, “‘Embrace’ is a figure of speech! Us authors use them all the time.”
It might be nice if she used a plot from time to time. I just work here, what do I know? Last we heard, a burrowing rhinoceros was making a shambles of the gardens in the vicar’s neighborhood. The latest development there…
“Well shut my mouth!” exclaims Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad. He and Lady Margo Cargo are organizing a safari. He points to the earth, to three or four roundish white objects. “Y’know what those are?” Lady Margo does not know. Her upholstered wooden leg is giving her trouble.
“Those,” he proclaims, “are rhino eggs! We have found the rhino’s nest! I found one in Ohio once, but there was something wrong with it. Only chickens came out of the eggs.”
“This is a calamity which no mortal flesh should have to bear,” Lady Margo says.
The chapter ends before Lord Jeremy can actually re-enter his ancestral home. This is either a stroke of literary genius or merely running out of time.
Rhino eggs???? Well, at least let’s hope they don’t hatch out any RINOs. 🙂
When Rhino eggs hatch chickens, something ls desperately wrong. Imagine how disappointing that would be to the mother rhino. 🙂
It’s possible Mr. Twombley was mistaken.
So the hatchlings actually were Rhinos, but Twombley just thought they were chickens? 🙂
No, no! He has never made that particular mistake! He mis-identified the eggs. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.
I misidentified eggs once, at the supermarket. I thought that they were factory-second ping pong balls, and ended up with a terrible mess. Thank goodness they weren’t Rhinoceros eggs. That would have been even worse. 🙂
I am glad we’ve got that straightened out.
I am in a think of absolute mental clarity. 🙂