This is the chapter you’ve been waiting for! Or so I’m told.
Introducing Chapter DCLXXXXVIII of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, author Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, writes, “Well, we can’t go into Lady Margo Cargo’s romance with the Royal Millipede Inspector, can we? Not with the Picts sweeping down on us, we can’t!”
As described by Ms. Crepuscular, Picts are sort of half-human, half-alligator monsters that crawl out of the bayous and cypress swamps of northern Scotland, where they made a lot of money in real estate. Famous Picts in history include Beau Brummel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Alan Sherman. The rest are not famous.
As Justice of the Peace, Lord Jeremy Coldsore must organize the defense of the shire. “Why don’t you jist let me shoot them Picts?” suggests his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who believes himself to be Sargon of Akkad. “Back in Babylon, we would’t give them yayhoos the time o’day.”
Meanwhile, Constable Chumley is trying to start a rifle brigade. “An sennaught came yon westle,” he philosophizes. Picts can’t stand that kind of philosophy.
“I wanted to write the romance as a romance!” (Ms. Crepuscular gestures hypnotically. Three ushers fall into a trance.) “All I asked was a little help in naming the Royal Millipede Inspector. You’d’ve thought thousands of readers from all over the world would’ve responded! That’s what I thought! Just goes to show ya, don’t it?”
I’ve always known that Scotland was the perfect place for reptiles.