Introducing Chapter DCCXLI of her immortical romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense (some call her the Queen of Commas), tips off Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, to the threat posed by the June Taylor Dancers, ensconced in Scurvey Forest. (Wow, what a sentence!)
“I tried shootin’ ’em,” Twombley confides in our hero, Lord Jeremy Coldsore, “but they dance around so much, you can’t really take aim.”
“It doesn’t matter, old boy,” Lord Jeremy fewsters. “Once Mr. Pudding turns loose his killer newts, our dancer problem will be over.”
(Here are two of them, actual size. Much more dangerous than they look!)
“Durned if I ever saw this Mr. Pudding,” Twombley says. “Where’s he live?”
“In a houseful of newts, undisclosed address,” Jeremy explains. “Supposedly he’s under the protection of an extremely high-ranking member of the government. Probably dangerous to find out who that is!”
[Ms. Crepuscular is still fighting Joe Collidge over rights to space on this blog. On Thursday she resorted to giving Joe an Indian burn. He is not old enough to recognize it as such.]
I would imagine that the term “Indian burn” would be enough to push old Joe over the edge, in and of itself.