the mysterious Mr. Pudding

Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

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.”

Newt - Wikipedia

(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.]

Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Mild-mannered Mr. Pudding, and his newts–he’s so mysterious, not even Violet Crepuscular can tell you what he’s doing here. And she’s the author. It’s her fault.

“All we know,” she feldspars to her readers, “is that it’s Mr. Pudding’s newts, trained killers as they are, vs. the June Taylor Dancers! And the very existence of Scurveyshire is at steak!” (Yes, I know I spelled it wrong.)

Lady Margo Cargo is the first to notice the skeletons in the alley between the village pet shop and the Pike-O-Pay Tooth Care Emporium. She loses no time in reporting it to Constable Chumley, whose reaction is predictable: “Yan spivey fole o’ grist’um good,” he recites.

Busy, busy, busy! A few minutes later it’s Johnno the merry minstrel reporting that he has seen a few of the June Taylor Dancers sneaking around in Scurveyshire’s Forest of No Deposit, No Return. “What are you going to do about it, Constable?” he snaps.

“Fivvy for fordy or fyte,” Chumley concedes.

As for Mr. Pudding himself, Ms. Crepuscular knows hardly anything at all. “Any reader who might have any information on that subject, please contact your local police department and ask them to contact me so I can contact you.”