For one day of the year, every year, without fail, everything stops in Scurveyshire. Just comes to a total halt.
For this is the day the Royal Handwriting Inspector visits Scurveyshire to inspect everyone’s handwriting. It is an ancient custom going back to the days of the otherwise forgotten Anglo-Saxon king, Herb Meyer.
All right, inspection’s over–everybody back to work!
“These local traditions are incrostical,” writes author Violet Crepuscular, glossing over her failure to provide a Chapter DXXI for her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “Back in Henry XI’s time, anyone who failed to pass the handwriting inspection was denied the use of a sandbox.”
Anyway, the only thing that happened while this stupid inspection was going on was that the rhinoceros spun her cocoon behind Dr. Weezle’s chicken coop and is now dormant. And spies from Babylon, unfamiliar with the customs of rural England, stuck out like sore thumbs because they continued working while everyone else stopped–so it was no difficult matter for Willis Twombley to shoot them after the inspectors left.
Wait’ll all those rhino eggs hatch, though! They don’t call Violet the Queen of Suspense for nothing. She pays them to do it.
Wait, wait! I don’t remember Dr. Weezle! Where did he show up, and doing what? Oy vay, I’m getting as lost as King Herb Meyer.
This is his first appearance in the story. It remains to be seen whether it is also his last.
Great way to get rid of Babylonian spies. 🙂