From February 11, 2018
This is supposedly Chapter CXXXI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, but I couldn’t swear to it.
The wandering spider collector, Miss Lizzie Snivel, has taken to hanging around Lord Jeremy Coldsore’s driveway lemonade stand and frightening the customers by trying to give them spiders.
“Want me to shoot her for you, Germy?” asks Willis Twombley, the American adventurer. He has been methodically picking off Lord Jeremy’s creditors, one by one. The most recent victim, this morning, he has concealed in Coldsore Hall’s infamous Haunted Bedroom.
“Rather you didn’t, old boy.”
The problem here is that Miss Lizzie is dazzlingly beautiful, except for the unsightly ruin of her nose, where she was once bitten by an Australian Venomous Horror Spider named Jeff. She has fallen in love with Lord Jeremy and can’t bear to be away from him. He finds it very flattering.
The Japanese ambassador makes another cameo appearance here, but no one wants him.
“Lady Margo ain’t gonna like yer flirtin’ with that spider gal,” Twombley warns. “If’n she gits word of it, she might not marry us. There ain’t nothin’ as jealous as a woman with a wooden leg. Believe me, I know!”
“If only she wouldn’t keep trying to sneak into Coldsore Hall at night!” cries Jeremy. Against his will, her persistence is beginning to win her over. Unknown to everyone, Miss Lizzie has amassed a colossal fortune by collecting spiders. She has not yet mentioned this.
“Lady Margo been tryin’ to sneak in? What’s wrong with that?” wonders Twombley.
“Not Lady Margo, old boy! It’s that spider girl. She won’t take no for an answer.”
Meanwhile a loud brawl breaks out in the taproom of the Lying Tart that night between villagers who believe Black Rodney is a dangerous sorcerer returned from the dead to put curses on the shire, and those who are convinced he is a kind of catfish. Constable Chumley restores order with a speech that no one understands. It is not reproduced here. “I am afraid his language is not what it should be,” Ms. Crepuscular confides in her readers.
It’s good to see that Spider Lady is beginning to take on a rather prominent role. I enjoy watching spiders spin 🙂
“ The Japanese ambassador makes another cameo appearance here, but no one wants him.”
I love it. Only Lee could come up with such a cameo.
He was a funny guy (Lee, I mean-not the Japanese ambassador.)
I’ve heard that ambassador was overly serious. 🙂
Well you know how ambassadors are.
Especially ambassadors to Scurveyshire. 🙂
Ha, ha!
I imagine that real life ambassadors probably have assignments which are nearly that crazy.
I would guess they have to be quite cautious in what they say and do.
Working across cultures can be challenging. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be saturated in another culture, by being an ambassador.
Lee’s professors when he was an honors undergrad wanted him to take the Woodrow Wilson scholarship (which really grooms the student for a career in diplomacy). He was wise enough to know that would not have worked out.
Lee was way too honest to be a diplomat.
And he knew it, too.
Being honest can be a hinderance, these days.