Ah, well. Here we go. Snurdley saves the world again, but this time, in a spoof of Jane Eyre, of all things. Next time, the set moves to...the Middle East.
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In June, Major Snurdley returned home to Upper Bolton, where he bought himself a copy of the Times and found himself to be wildly famous, much to his horror, for winning the entire Crimean War with his valiant charge to ascertain a little more intelligence. This charge, of course, ended in total disaster, for instead of doing what it was intended to do, it totally destroyed the Mongol army, and therefore rendered the use of further intelligence to nil. However, he found himself in a good position now, as Britain’s number one military hero.
Returning home, he stayed the evening with his Aunt at her home, and stumbled upon a meeting of the Free for All Suffragette Committee, who hailed him as the greatest modern feminist alive for winning the war while belonging to the family of the suffragette ring leader. Half way through the meeting, he unaccountably vanished. The next morning, he left to visit his uncle’s cousin’s wife’s nephew and his family at Sapley-in-the Wold, Gortheringtonshire, West Mangehose, Buntley, near London. Along the way he stopped at his favorite pub, Bertie’s, and there engaged in a midget-tossing contest, a life long passion, along with pickled eggs.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Ha ha! Good to see you again, me boy. Heard a great deal of you since you came back from the war, what what!” said Sir Mergatroyd Gap-tooth Rotter, who met Snurdley, his cousin Peccary Filtchingham, and his butler, Butling, in the parlor. “You see, old boy, Britain rewards those who save it’s hide in war, and you are no exception…really. At least I don’t think you are…maybe not…
“Ha! Well, old boy, everything’s jolly fine now for you, laddie. War’s won and over,” rambled on Sir Mergatroyd, as he came closer and closer to losing his marbles. “The world is your golden spoon, like the oyster born in your mouth…or something…”
“Oh, yes, well thanks for the invitation, Sir Mergatroyd. Auntie J. was getting agitated, you see. She was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find the icebox if she were arrested again for beating another politician half to death with a placard, as she always does. It’s her motherly attitude, you see.” Snurdley always appreciated his Aunt, especially her blood thirsty, death and glory, kill for the bill attitude.
“Ah, but enough of the words of a boring old man with few enough follicles in the old bean to be able to relate to you much of anything. Allow me to introduce my incredibly beautiful daughter…Brilliana!”
With that gorgeous name, a vision in scarlet walked coolly down the stairs, her face like a porcelain water bowl, her hair as red as a rotten onion, her eyes as light blue as detergent. She walked forward, into the wall, and from it she turned, walked forward once again, over the chair, onto the floor, and up, walking into the mantelpiece, and tripping to the basement stairs, down which she literally tripped. Snurdley was quite enchanted with her incredible features, and her obvious charm and (half)wit.
After she’d reentered the room, and put on the sticking plaster, she introduced herself in her breathless voice. “I’m Brilliana Rotter…I’ve heard a lot about you from…things.”
“My word!” said Mergatroyd, with pride, “what a smart girly!”
“Oh…let’s have a walk in the garden!” said Snurdley.
And so they had one. Despite the wind outside, and the peach blossoms that floated down his throat and got stuck there, Snurdley thought it the most joyful occasion of his life, save that lovely time when he’d won fifty pounds on tossing a midget so incredibly high that he’d broken the world record. That midget was now his butler, Butling, and the chap with whom he discussed macroeconomics the most.
But enough of the past. For the present, Snurdley was happy. Walking arm in arm, he and Brilliana conversed on what interested them, and found that they had much in common.
“Artichoke?! Why!! Are you serious?! I also love artichoke…deeply!”
“Buckingham? Why, I hated him too! Isn’t that marvelous?”
Other such things occurred that made Snurdley feel more and more that this was the lady he was predestined to marry. Snurdley’s belief in predestination had messed him up before, especially where pig racing at Lower Bolton was concerned, or the Cucumber Affair - that was a real mess-up - but now, he believed that he was finally going to find something he was predestined for.
Hours passed and time went by in the most extraordinary fashion as they talked and talked and talked of all they appreciated. Finally, he decided to propose. “Maybe,” she said, “Give me a week to think about it.” And so she did.
Later that evening, after they realized they’d walked too far from Buntley (they’d recognized the Hebrides off in the distance), they turned around for dinner. As they arrived at the house, a sudden laugh was heard, and a white figure dashed across the colonnade, lizard-like, sending a shudder up and down and up and down Snurdley’s spine. “What the devil?”
“It’s Mrs. Sauskind, our house keeper. Please excuse her…we’re afraid she may have gone insane. Oh well. She’s a Luddite, so she says. And you know how trustworthy Luddites, are…they’d go after your car without a second thought…and forget that tuna fish canning machine…they’d smash it…they send shudders up and down and up and down my spine.”
“Same here. Well, what a nice evening we’ve had.”
“Yes.”
“Quite.”
“That’s true.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yep.”
“Sure.”
“Righty-O.”
“Affirmative.”
“All right.”
“Agreed.”
“Right-ho.”
“Yessssir.”
“Aw huh.”
They would have continued as such, had not someone shouted that dinner was served.
Snurdley was given a room with two beds; one for him, the other for cousin Peccary, the famous gourmand and explorer of such exotic locations as the mysterious Amazon River, the Nile, and the Thames Embankment. The pillow was as soft as the duck it had been ripped brutally from, and despite the terrible visions of the same poor duck wandering cold and naked in the snows of that past year, Snurdley managed to get some sleep…that is until five minutes past three o’clock in the morning.
The first thing that alerted his senses was the bark of the hounds, and then slowly the lights popped into his head. Was this the famous ghost of Sir Despard Mergatroyd, the original member of the Mergatroyd family, executed by Cromwell for being a Royalist, and seen to this day appearing in odd places in the house, like the icebox or the loo, headless, looking for revenge, bloodthirsty, screaming sometimes, laughing other times, or just being stupid. Well, no, it wasn’t. He quickly realized that it was really the torches of the hordes of pitchfork carrying villagers and estate men searching in the woods outside the house for…something.
He even spied Sir Mergatroyd himself, grasping a hound’s leash in one hand, and a loaded shotgun in the other. He had a duck call in his jaws, and his disposition looked very poor indeed. Something was afoot…something big, bad, and tasteless, no doubt.
Hearing his waking groans, however, the voice of Peccary came from the other side of the room, saying: “Dammit, Lancelot, cut it out, shut up, and go back to sleep…”
Oh well, thought Lancelot. Then Mr. Sandman came along, and viciously rubbed his face in the sand.
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The next morning, Snurdley found Brilliana alone at breakfast, eating a large sausage, and an egg that bore sick resemblance to a chap he’d seen in India who’d been stepped on by his elephant Tantor. “What happened this morning?”
“This…morning?”
“The dogs…the lights…the search party? At five minutes past three o'clock?”
“Ummmm…uhhhhh…It must have been...the...cat!”
“It was about Mrs. Sauskind, wasn’t it?”
“Blast. Yes…it was…if you must know. She escaped yesterday evening, with a laugh and a giggle and a snort, and then she was off. It was terrible. Everyone was after her. Luddites like her will lead us down a terrible road and…”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The thing that Snurdley had noticed behind Brilliana’s chair looked at first to be just some idiot’s excuse for a wall…but then he realized that it was indeed a secret passage. Jumping forward, he leapt into the priest hole, and charged forward, discovering to his horror a giant, ancient Celtic chapel, carved out of the Cliffside, unknown to everybody above but a select few.
Candles lit up the huge room, and in the middle stood a giant painting. The face of the man was small, chubby, and pink. Snurdley saw the ecclesiastical garb, and noticed Mrs. Sauskind kneeling before the painting with several other insane looking individuals. He then realized the truth…
They weren’t Luddites…
They were Laudites…
“Hark!” shouted Mrs. Sauskind, “It’s that cursed Snurdley! He’s uncovered our devious and wicked plan to let wolverines loose in the House of Lords to avenge the murder of He Who Must Be Obeyed! Archbishop Laud will be avenged!!” With that, she pulled out a large pistol. The door opened again, however, and whacked her in the head. Sir Mergatroyd came in, and gasped.
“So!” he said, “It’s as I thought! You were up to no good, Mrs. Sauskind! Mrs. Sauskind? Madame?”
And so, once again, Snurdley had saved England from no gooders like Mrs. Sauskind, who lost her memory following the concussion and unhappily mistook herself for a Capuchin Monkey when she regained her senses. She was thus committed to a zoo.
Before Brilliana could make up her mind on the proposal, however, the career of Lancelot Snurdley intervened. A letter marked “INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT” arrived by post several days later. He had received orders to go to Alexandria at once, from where he would take fast elephant to Khartoum for a special assignment from the War Office. Promotion, he was assured, lay ahead. He could not help but wonder what exactly he was supposed to do in Khartoum, however. Ah well, he thought…all of my answers will be answered shortly. And so they were. Arriving at Alexandria, he purchased a ticket with Abu the Elephant Man to ride to Khartoum the next morning. While waiting for the elephant, he stopped at Mahound’s, a favorite pub in the region, where he engaged in a midget tossing contest.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---
In June, Major Snurdley returned home to Upper Bolton, where he bought himself a copy of the Times and found himself to be wildly famous, much to his horror, for winning the entire Crimean War with his valiant charge to ascertain a little more intelligence. This charge, of course, ended in total disaster, for instead of doing what it was intended to do, it totally destroyed the Mongol army, and therefore rendered the use of further intelligence to nil. However, he found himself in a good position now, as Britain’s number one military hero.
Returning home, he stayed the evening with his Aunt at her home, and stumbled upon a meeting of the Free for All Suffragette Committee, who hailed him as the greatest modern feminist alive for winning the war while belonging to the family of the suffragette ring leader. Half way through the meeting, he unaccountably vanished. The next morning, he left to visit his uncle’s cousin’s wife’s nephew and his family at Sapley-in-the Wold, Gortheringtonshire, West Mangehose, Buntley, near London. Along the way he stopped at his favorite pub, Bertie’s, and there engaged in a midget-tossing contest, a life long passion, along with pickled eggs.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Ha ha! Good to see you again, me boy. Heard a great deal of you since you came back from the war, what what!” said Sir Mergatroyd Gap-tooth Rotter, who met Snurdley, his cousin Peccary Filtchingham, and his butler, Butling, in the parlor. “You see, old boy, Britain rewards those who save it’s hide in war, and you are no exception…really. At least I don’t think you are…maybe not…
“Ha! Well, old boy, everything’s jolly fine now for you, laddie. War’s won and over,” rambled on Sir Mergatroyd, as he came closer and closer to losing his marbles. “The world is your golden spoon, like the oyster born in your mouth…or something…”
“Oh, yes, well thanks for the invitation, Sir Mergatroyd. Auntie J. was getting agitated, you see. She was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find the icebox if she were arrested again for beating another politician half to death with a placard, as she always does. It’s her motherly attitude, you see.” Snurdley always appreciated his Aunt, especially her blood thirsty, death and glory, kill for the bill attitude.
“Ah, but enough of the words of a boring old man with few enough follicles in the old bean to be able to relate to you much of anything. Allow me to introduce my incredibly beautiful daughter…Brilliana!”
With that gorgeous name, a vision in scarlet walked coolly down the stairs, her face like a porcelain water bowl, her hair as red as a rotten onion, her eyes as light blue as detergent. She walked forward, into the wall, and from it she turned, walked forward once again, over the chair, onto the floor, and up, walking into the mantelpiece, and tripping to the basement stairs, down which she literally tripped. Snurdley was quite enchanted with her incredible features, and her obvious charm and (half)wit.
After she’d reentered the room, and put on the sticking plaster, she introduced herself in her breathless voice. “I’m Brilliana Rotter…I’ve heard a lot about you from…things.”
“My word!” said Mergatroyd, with pride, “what a smart girly!”
“Oh…let’s have a walk in the garden!” said Snurdley.
And so they had one. Despite the wind outside, and the peach blossoms that floated down his throat and got stuck there, Snurdley thought it the most joyful occasion of his life, save that lovely time when he’d won fifty pounds on tossing a midget so incredibly high that he’d broken the world record. That midget was now his butler, Butling, and the chap with whom he discussed macroeconomics the most.
But enough of the past. For the present, Snurdley was happy. Walking arm in arm, he and Brilliana conversed on what interested them, and found that they had much in common.
“Artichoke?! Why!! Are you serious?! I also love artichoke…deeply!”
“Buckingham? Why, I hated him too! Isn’t that marvelous?”
Other such things occurred that made Snurdley feel more and more that this was the lady he was predestined to marry. Snurdley’s belief in predestination had messed him up before, especially where pig racing at Lower Bolton was concerned, or the Cucumber Affair - that was a real mess-up - but now, he believed that he was finally going to find something he was predestined for.
Hours passed and time went by in the most extraordinary fashion as they talked and talked and talked of all they appreciated. Finally, he decided to propose. “Maybe,” she said, “Give me a week to think about it.” And so she did.
Later that evening, after they realized they’d walked too far from Buntley (they’d recognized the Hebrides off in the distance), they turned around for dinner. As they arrived at the house, a sudden laugh was heard, and a white figure dashed across the colonnade, lizard-like, sending a shudder up and down and up and down Snurdley’s spine. “What the devil?”
“It’s Mrs. Sauskind, our house keeper. Please excuse her…we’re afraid she may have gone insane. Oh well. She’s a Luddite, so she says. And you know how trustworthy Luddites, are…they’d go after your car without a second thought…and forget that tuna fish canning machine…they’d smash it…they send shudders up and down and up and down my spine.”
“Same here. Well, what a nice evening we’ve had.”
“Yes.”
“Quite.”
“That’s true.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yep.”
“Sure.”
“Righty-O.”
“Affirmative.”
“All right.”
“Agreed.”
“Right-ho.”
“Yessssir.”
“Aw huh.”
They would have continued as such, had not someone shouted that dinner was served.
Snurdley was given a room with two beds; one for him, the other for cousin Peccary, the famous gourmand and explorer of such exotic locations as the mysterious Amazon River, the Nile, and the Thames Embankment. The pillow was as soft as the duck it had been ripped brutally from, and despite the terrible visions of the same poor duck wandering cold and naked in the snows of that past year, Snurdley managed to get some sleep…that is until five minutes past three o’clock in the morning.
The first thing that alerted his senses was the bark of the hounds, and then slowly the lights popped into his head. Was this the famous ghost of Sir Despard Mergatroyd, the original member of the Mergatroyd family, executed by Cromwell for being a Royalist, and seen to this day appearing in odd places in the house, like the icebox or the loo, headless, looking for revenge, bloodthirsty, screaming sometimes, laughing other times, or just being stupid. Well, no, it wasn’t. He quickly realized that it was really the torches of the hordes of pitchfork carrying villagers and estate men searching in the woods outside the house for…something.
He even spied Sir Mergatroyd himself, grasping a hound’s leash in one hand, and a loaded shotgun in the other. He had a duck call in his jaws, and his disposition looked very poor indeed. Something was afoot…something big, bad, and tasteless, no doubt.
Hearing his waking groans, however, the voice of Peccary came from the other side of the room, saying: “Dammit, Lancelot, cut it out, shut up, and go back to sleep…”
Oh well, thought Lancelot. Then Mr. Sandman came along, and viciously rubbed his face in the sand.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The next morning, Snurdley found Brilliana alone at breakfast, eating a large sausage, and an egg that bore sick resemblance to a chap he’d seen in India who’d been stepped on by his elephant Tantor. “What happened this morning?”
“This…morning?”
“The dogs…the lights…the search party? At five minutes past three o'clock?”
“Ummmm…uhhhhh…It must have been...the...cat!”
“It was about Mrs. Sauskind, wasn’t it?”
“Blast. Yes…it was…if you must know. She escaped yesterday evening, with a laugh and a giggle and a snort, and then she was off. It was terrible. Everyone was after her. Luddites like her will lead us down a terrible road and…”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The thing that Snurdley had noticed behind Brilliana’s chair looked at first to be just some idiot’s excuse for a wall…but then he realized that it was indeed a secret passage. Jumping forward, he leapt into the priest hole, and charged forward, discovering to his horror a giant, ancient Celtic chapel, carved out of the Cliffside, unknown to everybody above but a select few.
Candles lit up the huge room, and in the middle stood a giant painting. The face of the man was small, chubby, and pink. Snurdley saw the ecclesiastical garb, and noticed Mrs. Sauskind kneeling before the painting with several other insane looking individuals. He then realized the truth…
They weren’t Luddites…
They were Laudites…
“Hark!” shouted Mrs. Sauskind, “It’s that cursed Snurdley! He’s uncovered our devious and wicked plan to let wolverines loose in the House of Lords to avenge the murder of He Who Must Be Obeyed! Archbishop Laud will be avenged!!” With that, she pulled out a large pistol. The door opened again, however, and whacked her in the head. Sir Mergatroyd came in, and gasped.
“So!” he said, “It’s as I thought! You were up to no good, Mrs. Sauskind! Mrs. Sauskind? Madame?”
And so, once again, Snurdley had saved England from no gooders like Mrs. Sauskind, who lost her memory following the concussion and unhappily mistook herself for a Capuchin Monkey when she regained her senses. She was thus committed to a zoo.
Before Brilliana could make up her mind on the proposal, however, the career of Lancelot Snurdley intervened. A letter marked “INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT” arrived by post several days later. He had received orders to go to Alexandria at once, from where he would take fast elephant to Khartoum for a special assignment from the War Office. Promotion, he was assured, lay ahead. He could not help but wonder what exactly he was supposed to do in Khartoum, however. Ah well, he thought…all of my answers will be answered shortly. And so they were. Arriving at Alexandria, he purchased a ticket with Abu the Elephant Man to ride to Khartoum the next morning. While waiting for the elephant, he stopped at Mahound’s, a favorite pub in the region, where he engaged in a midget tossing contest.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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