Exercise
‘Within a few years Lord Strange’s men had acquired an enviable reputation.’
Within a few years Lord Strange’s men had acquired an enviable reputation. Their travels from village to village, riding in a closed carriage drawn by hunched and broken men, took on the character of a crusade, and indeed each of them began to feel that their personal traits were such that they should be imposed upon the general population with all speed—for their own improvement and edification, of course. Take take just one example, let us lookat the case of Boffin Terimus, a larg—some might say obese man of unsanitary habits and grose personal inclinations. During the second act of each Show of the Strange he would issue edicts from his well-padded couch, written upon slips of rose-scented paper, which were then passed randomly to members of the crowd. The villager in question would then be forced to perform the act described upon the piece of paper, then and there before his friends and family, or risk one of any number of violent deaths devised by the men-at-arms during their weekly poker nights. What is more, Sublord Terminus was often moved to heave his quivering body from his divan and join in the act himself, to the disgust of the crowd.