“We are coming down the home stretch!” ululates Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, as she introduces Chapter DCCXXX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “All I have to do is tie up fifty or sixty loose ends, and it’s a wrap!”
She confides in her legion of readers, “You will remember that the old medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, cast a time-travel spell to bring himself up to the 19th century. At least, you should remember! It’s not something that happens every day.
“Alas! He bungled the spell and came back as a large stick insect–without vocal chords, so he can’t recite a spell that would restore him to human form. Suffice it to say he’s now crawling around Scurveyshire in search of edible leaves.”
Meanwhile, Lady Margo Cargo has mistakenly married her butler, Crusty, thinking him to be Lord Jeremy Coldsore. Crusty was paying no attention at the time, so it was a jolt to him to learn about those nuptials. Lord Jeremy is not amused.
“I’ve a good mind to ask you to shoot that interloper!” he remarks to his friend, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. Twombley takes it seriously and shoots Crusty in the foot. Now Crusty can’t serve the wine without stumbling and spilling it in Lady Margo’s lap.
“And here we will leave it for the time being,” concludes Ms. Crepuscular. “It’s how we suspense writers crank up the suspense!”
Silly me: I thought they called it “dawdling.”