AustLit

'Sire?

'Sire! Over here, in the boiling oils, Sire!

'Your Majesty, I know you think I speak drivel, but what can I do but affect mock humility and say I’m flattered you think so?

Sure, this mightn’t be the classic 1001 Arabian Nights, and these mightn’t be its perfumed nights but your Lankan nights have their skies just as full of the starry-eyed, no?

'And so I mightn’t be the beautiful Princess Scheherezade, but my oh-yeah-pull-this-ones still have to make you too tired in the day to have this bloody man of an axeman in your ear about my neck. That’s not easy for a strolling reteller like me, Sire. I get my word sounds mixed up a lot, and spelling’s never been one of my best motleys. I say that flattered I think so.

And my hey-gag-on-this shaggy dogs mightn’t be about Sinbad or Ali Baba, but they’re just as yank-this-it-plays-Dixie about the wuzz Wi and his other merry no-hopers from Wattala.

'Who, you say? Surely you remember Wi, a name especially chosen in length to fit your span of attention? The world-record kidnappee, nabbee, swipee, snatchee? (How about that three times in three minutes effort that time, Sire?) After all, who knows how many of your own people have also hired him out as White goods for their nefarious ends? Not that he wouldn’t prefer that to wiping plates in Dominic’s Eatery... the place to get wiped off!... and better than eating Dominic’s food.

Me, I’d eat anything in my cell down there banked out by the sewer, Sire. Even with my feet up – like, six feet above my head.' (Publication summary)