As already mentioned, Constance Lawless pressed Wolverine to do more than study at Eton.  Contacts matter.   A young wolverine must prove himself to be more than grind.  Wolverine fell into the spirit of the place, but, to his mother’s consternation, never made any headway seducing beaks or clergy.  Not even the desperate measure of joining the choir, a renowned nest of paederasts and budding homosexualists did him any good.  He did meet one boy with excellent credentials: Peregrine Blonde-Bomb.  Peregrine got his name after his dad Lord Caligula got a hatcheck girl at a London gambling den pregnant.  His lordship tried to excuse himself, claiming he thought the girl was a boy.  By the time he realized his error, he was too far along to care.  Caligula’s solicitor tidied up the sequelae of the evening after a palimony suit.  Part of the suit was that the boy’s last named be “Blonde-Bomb.”  Blondes and bombs, according to Caligula, as two of the world’s treasures.  When it came to money, bombs and newspapers had done well by Lord Caligula, but blondes, alas, had been a steady, albeit tolerable drain, on his income. 

When the time came for Wolverine to leave Eton, like his friend Peregrine, he scoffed at the idea of heading to Oxford to suffer for four years reading “Greats.”  Cambridge was most unappetizing.  So, Wolverine talked his special friend, Peregrine, into getting him an interview with his father for a job at a London tabloid.  At the interview, Lord Caligula liked what he saw. There sat Wolverine in a bespoke suit, coke hat, and a walking stick.  The stick was of polished ebony, tipped with silver, and had a large wolverine’s head as its handle.  Lord Caligula asked about it.  Wolverine volunteered that as a gentleman he must never succumb to the temptation to bite or claw a foe.  Like a true gentleman, Wolverine fought his enemies by beating them insensate with his walking stick. 

Lord Caligula marveled at Wolverine’s breeding, but could also he write.  After Wolverine responded to prompts with shameless, ribald stories about beaks, bishops, various ministers, and other public figures without any discernible concern for their truth, Lord Caligula knew he had the makings of a top-drawer Fleet Street journalist before him.  The only question was how little he could be paid.  Instead, Caligula said, “You’ll do.  We’ll talk money later.” 

Wolverine felt a surge of pleasure.  He pictured sharing a flat with Peregrine.  Surely, Peregrine would also earn money as a journalist.  When he mentioned sharing digs with Peregrine explained it was a no-go.  He would not work as a journalist.  Papa was installing him as a manager at Munitions Galore, one of Lord Caligula’s most profitable businesses.  “I’m going to put you in the Bomb R&D department.  Think your name: Mr Blonde-Bomb.  You’ll have instant credibility in the trade. Besides, you’re too honest for journalism or overseeing one of my Blond Bomb Gentlemen’s Clubs.  You lack the criminal training to do a proper job.” 

Now, gentle reader, let me say that Lord Caligula, in my view, got Wolverine about right, but he underestimated Peregrine.  No level of sneaky criminality was beyond him.  Still, his Lordship had a point.  Why risk detection from a mistake by an amateur criminal? Lord Caligula had so many shell companies that nobody had any idea he owned the Blond Bomb Clubs.  And why would they?  In his role as a Lord, he offered the public incessant speeches on the sanctity of life, the indispensability of capital punishment, God’s Love, the dignity of work, and the need for parents to remember Salomon when chastising a child.  His Lordship was also a staunch critic of all perversions, and often railed against the “infestation of London by homosexuals.”  It was becoming impossible for decent men to walk down a London street without being lured from decency.  Perhaps his House of Lords’ speeches are best understood in relation to two questions he put to Wolverine during the interview.  “Do you attend church?”  Wolverine replied, “Surely you know that at Eton chapel is mandatory.”  “Good news,” cried his Lordship.  He then asked, “Do you believe in the almighty?”   Wolverine didn’t lose a beat.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  Of course not.  But . . . it is appearances that matter.”  At this point, Lord Caligula’s heart melted.  He stroked Wolverine’s snout while murmuring, “What a smart, lovely boy you are.”  Wolverine, if he knew anything, it was what humbug was and so did his Lordship.

Once Wolverine had his job, he telephoned his mummy.  It had been a couple of years since her last personal visit to him.  She had stopped by Eton during one of her routine trips to London to shop.  She’d have stopped more often, but her trips took her to places several miles from Eton.  Her time was valuable.  On this trip, he come to see if I had followed her instructions on shoes.  When she saw the pair Wolverine was wearing, a frown flitted across her face.  She observed that Wolverine had had Szabo, her Hungarian cobbler, made his shoes, but she disapproved of the style.  Wolverine would never go anywhere sporting Baby Janes.  When Wolverine began to talk about their comfort, she cut him short, telling him that she was not asking him to dress like an Italian in pointy shoes.  He could wear the male equivalent of Betty Janes, the Chelsea boot.  She added that it would be unseemly for him to go to dinner parties in any stiletto heels that Szabo might have made him.  And he was ordered not to wear mules when shopping either.  “I am not,” hissed Constance, “a shoe model for you.  It goes without saying that your bare pawed father is no model either.” 

Anyway, when Constance picked up to phone and Wolverine told him of Lord Caligula’s offer to hire him, his mother surrendered to orgasmic happiness.  ‘Oh, thank the gods.  Your father and I did not squander are money in sending you to Eton.”  She agreed that Lord Caligula would be mean with his salary.  She promised Wolverine a modest allowance from his father.  When Wolverine wondered if his father would go along, being so cheap and all, Constance turned fierce.  “He’ll do what I tell him to do, or I’ll flog him dead.  Disobey me?  Whom do you imagine he is?” Now I do have to admit I have pieced all this material together from a liar’s testimony.  Nevertheless, I know it to be true that Wolverine began to write.  He also began his “Lawless Roaming” column.   It was very popular, perhaps because it ran next to pictures of naked women in his tabloid.  Peregrine also started at Munitions Galore and showed an aptitude for weapons research.  He enjoyed watching bombs destroy things at the range but was never happier than when watching footage from war zones of burning, screaming men emerging from a just exploded tank.  Sailors jumping into the water from an exploding ship were also a good look.   “Oh, how I love my work,” he’d cluck, ”my bombs and missiles work.”