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Be It Ever So Horrid
It was but a short time after Stomper’s coronation that Frito, still in his tattered elvin-cloak, wearily trod the familiar cattle run to Bug End. The flight had been swift, and, save some air pockets and a midair collision with a gaggle of migrating flamingos, quite uneventful.
Boggietown was a filthy mess. Piles of unclaimed garbage littered the soupy streets and bloated boggie-brats somehow managed to track their goo up the tree trunks; no one had even bothered to clean up the litter from Dildo’s party. Frito found himself oddly pleased that so little had changed during his absence.
“Been away?” croaked a familiar voice.
“Yes,” said Frito, spitting at the old Fatlip with traditional boggie formality. “I am home from the Great War. I have unmade the Ring of Power and vanquished Sorhed, evil ruler of far Fordor.”
“Do tell,” sniggered Fatlip as he made a thorough search of a nostril. “Wondered where you got the queer duds.”
Frito passed on to his own hole and waded through a mound of papers and milk bottles to his door. Inside, he made a fruitless inspection of his icebox and returned to his den to make a small fire. Then he tossed his elvin-cloak into a corner and collapsed with a sigh into his easy chair. He had seen much, and now he was home.
Just then a soft knocking came at the door.
“Dammit,” muttered Frito, roused from his reveries. “Who’s there?”
There was no reply save another, more insistent knock.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Frito went to the door and opened it.
There on the stoop were twenty-three lyre-strumming nymphs in gauzy pants-suits couched in a golden canoe borne on the cool mists of a hundred fire extinguishers and crewed by a dozen tipsy leprechauns uniformed in shimmering middy-blouses and fringed toreador pants. Facing Frito was a twelve-foot specter shrouded in red sateen, shod in bejeweled riding boots, and mounted on an obese, pale-blue unicorn. Around him fluttered winged frogs, miniature Valkyries, and an airborne caduceus. The tall figure offered Frito a six-fingered hand which held a curiously inscribed identification bracelet simply crawling with mysterious portents.
“I understand,” said the stranger solemnly, “that you undertake quests.”
Frito banged the door shut in the specter’s surprised face, bolted, barred, and locked it, swallowing the key for good measure. Then he walked directly to his cozy fire and slumped in the chair. He began to muse upon the years of delicious boredom that lay ahead. Perhaps he would take up Scrabble.