I had no idea how long Constance planned to convalesce in Webster Groves.  Whenever I talked to Bart, Fielding, Quine, or Chicago, they complained about her.  According to them, Constance was a conceited attention hog.  They also worried that Wolverine would show up in Webster with ridiculous demands for more give-hers for Constance.

Being in Potomac, i had ready access to the Washington papers.  Sometimes I would get confused. Bart had to explain to me that the Onion was a satirical newsheet.  I had got excited about its compelling stories.  For example, I had no idea that Golda Meir and Eisenhower had an affair or that Kim Khardashian was a trans woman until I read the Onion. Without the Onion,  I’d never have figured out that Obama and Trump had been schoolboy lovers in Kenya.

I did notice plenty of super stories in the Epoch Times.  Why should I not have trusted it?  Its byline read “Truth and Tradition.”  

When I mentioned Epoch to mike, he jeered that it was a rag of Falun Gong.  I was too ashamed to confess that I didn’t know who Falun Gong was.  Perhaps he was an alias of Jabba the Hutt.  You just never know.  I sure didn’t.

Besides, in DC, the Epoch was the sole paper running lush photo spreads on Constance.  If you could read, you’d swear Constance had killed more bad guys than Rooster Cogburn.  The photos showed Constance holding her Python. Often you’d see stacks of bullet-riddled bodies near her.  In one photo shoot, you could see her wounded in Lord Caligula’s arms.  Given the pose, I knew she must have felt awful, otherwise his Lordship would have been getting a hand job.  Instead of a lewd story, a headline screamed “Constance Rescued.  Female Avenger Guards Brit Secrets.”  If only Queen Elizabeth had been as tough of Constance, Britannia would indeed rule the waves and the world.

Op-ed columns in England supported Lord Caligula’s demand that Constance receive a King George Cross.  In particular, the tabloids supported her immediate citizenship.  The Mirror had pictures of alleged haters of Constance. Beholds the anti-citizenship mob. They all looked like Nosferatu.

And the Epoch was not the only newspaper covering the aftermath of the raid on Munitions Galore. The Washington Post and the Washington Examiner were lavish in their coverage.  President Trump had waddled out to proclaim that Munitions Galore and Constance had been “treated very badly by some very sick puppies” for defending groundbreaking work at Munitions Galore from illegal aliens.  He went on to comment on the Chinese, assuring listeners that he was “sure there were some very good ones,” but Constance had faced the “rapists and the criminals.”  The President then volunteered that they seemed to him to be Asia’s Mexicans.

For several days, Mexico’s Ambassador to the US and China’s Ambassador to the US joined forces to denounce the racist comments of somebody at the White House who either knew or ought to know better.  Diplomats being diplomats, no names were named. Donald being Donald, he kept talking.

Emperor Xi also addressed a Party Conference to proclaim China’s love of peace, but also to assure the world that the Chinese stood shoulder-to-shoulder with peace-loving peoples across the Universe in being ready to fight fascists and the unspeakable weapons they had been developing and maybe even using.  

Oddly, the Israelis gave a prompt reply from the blue.  Yahoo Netannutter assured the world that “Israel has no new weapons and no new nukes either, and would never use any of the weapons it does not have, unless they had no choice but to use them.”  Imagine the relief of Arabs everywhere.

The Iranians sent communiques stating that they opposed the use of new weapons by Jews, and might even oppose their use by non Jews too.  A chief Shiite mullah went on 60 Minutes and declared he opposed all barbarous weapons.  Further, he promised Leslie Stahl that his sincere belief was that nobody should hate Jews more than he should.  

Soon, Putin praised President Trump’s restraint, saying he believed that Trump preferred peace to war.  Although neither of them had stealth bombs or Ice-10, they would not use them if they did have them, though Puti admitted failing confidence about the Germans being able to restrain themselves from war crimes.  When asked to elaborate, Putin observed that Germany is so geographically close to Lithuania that only a nitwit would not suspect them of some role in that Nazi-ish attack. 

As all this news swirled about me, I got to go to a meeting in Langley, VA with Lord Caligula and Binky Dalrymple.  His Lordship brought Peregrine and me along to keep track of what got said.  His Lordship liked Binky, but disliked having to trust anything Binky said about money.  

When I walked into Binky’s office, the coolness of its parquet floors felt good on my dainty paws.  I spotted fine Turkey rugs in the room, but preferred a cuddle chair in a corner with plush pillows.  Binky, emulating the dress of Dick Cheney,  his Lordship, and Peregrine sat at a large round table with cloisonne inlays of dragons.  Peregrine expressed his admiration of the dragons.  You can never go wrong with a dragon.

Binky had a projector in front of him.  When he shoved a USB in it, a dizzying chart popped up on the wall.  Man, I hate maths.

Immediately, his Lordship grumbled, “We’re not in for a maths seminar, are we Binky?”

“Maths is the Language of God.  The whole world is but a cipher.  You should take the trouble to learn a bit about it, Caligula.”  Binky was the kind of guy that in days of old walked about with a slide rule in his hip pocket.  He probably would have used penguards too.

Being an American, Binky tended to be lax about titles.  I also think he skipped using Lord Caligula’s title to irk him.  It always irked his Lordship that Binky must have more illicit loot than himself.  How the American system hobbled along without a hereditary  aristocracy was incomprehensible to his Lordship.

I have also wondered about aristocratic preferences.  Once I asked mike about primogeniture.  To my surprise, he regretted the world not having more of it.  I was on the verge of asking him why when he mentioned that as the eldest son in his family, he saw nothing wrong with primogeniture.  I objected that, as a known bastard, he was not entitled to inherit.  

“A stupid quibble.  I never said I endorsed every ancient aristocratic practice, only the good ones.  Bastardry is outdated.  Nobody knows what one is anymore.  The average John or Sally imagines a bastard is a disagreeable person. In fact, that was always a stereotype. Most likely it was invented by conniving, pampered younger brothers to cheat their elder brothers out of a title and fortune.”

I could see our conversation was going nowhere.   I did know that mike deplored the modern custom of babying younger siblings.  That practice forced the elder child to handle the real discipline in the house.  

At this time, I was also monitoring when I could return to Webster.  Constance was growing restless to travel.  She also treated everybody like a servant.  Then one day I learnt Wolverine showed up in a Limo and away Constance went.  I headed home to write more stories on all the lies being told about bots, stealth bombs, and Ice-10.  The world needed to know just how many powerhouses had these killing devices.