By Maradas Graham

There was once, gentle reader, in the land of the Seelie, a man by the name of Oglethorpe. He is, in a sense, your humble authors neighbor, and a fine enough fellow despite the rather pretentious name. Now on this particular day in question, it was a sunny and warm afternoon, and Oglethorpe was relaxing in the garden with a cup of hot chamomile-and-raspberry tea, which Jenny makes him take for his nerves, when a terrible ruckus began somewhere in the woods behind his house. He stood up slowly, for his knees tend to trouble him, and peered around the edge of the cottage to get a better look at the sound, suspecting that nothing that made a sound of that nature could be up to any good. Sure enough, there they were, trying to sneak up behind the cottage and peer in the windowas nasty a bunch of ogres as ever a man did see.

Well, Oglethorpe being a man of honor, and not much fancying the idea of ogres peeking in through his back window, which looked, for the record, into the large bedroom where Jenny was in the process of trying on petticoats, he turned with great haste towards the front door! Not appreciating at all the fact that these beasts were likely trying to catch a glimpse of his beloveds undergarments, he rushed into the room, shouting "Woman, put your skirts back on!" as he grabbed his old fencing foil from under the large chest-of-drawers.

By the time he made it around to the back of the house, however, the ogres had already figured out that they wouldnt see much more than a few bits of lace here and there, and gone on about their business, taking a few of Jennys potted plants (some begonias and chrysanthemums) with them. Well, this infuriated Oglethorpe even more, for he had watched Jenny work tediously over those plants day after day trying to prune them into the desired shape and give blooms of the correct size and colour. He took off after the foul beasties, hair flying and foil waving. Finally, he was able to track them down where they were heading for the border. Spotting them in the distance, Oglethorpe gave chase!

Unfortunately, the ogres had fled through a marshy bit of the border, and as Oglethorpe came racing through, a bit slowly---his knees are not what they used to be---one of his slippers stuck in the mud and came loose. Though he was loathe to leave a perfectly good slipper lying about in the mud for any ruffian to come along and take, he was not about to let those peeping-Ogre scoundrels get away, so he trudged on, one foot bare and muddy, foil waving wildly, swearing like a sailor under his breath how creatures these days have some nerve, and did their mothers not teach them any manners! The Ogres, at this point, had realized that they were being chased, but had decided that Oglethorpe was, indeed, not much of a threat at all, and so were only meandering, not hurrying in the slightest. With what surely must pass as a look of amusement for an Ogre, they disappeared into some brush on the edge of the forest.

Undaunted, Oglethorpe charged in after them, waving his fencing foil over is head, hollering in outrage, only to discover that the brush through which he was traveling was actually blackberry bushes, and that he had become quite stuck in the brambles. Well, he struggled for a few moments, only succeeding in entangling himself more thoroughly than ever before, and he thrashed about, leaping up and down in frustration, trying to free himself. As a result, he hung, suspended by blackberry thorns, a good foot and a half above the ground.

"This is quite a predicament", said Oglethorpe to himself, as he tried to go about cutting the brambles away. They were, it seemed, too tough for his old fencing foil, and it was only by sawing away at his pajamas for a while that Oglethorpe was able to free himself from the blackberry bush and place himself rightly upon the ground. Scratched up from head to toe, pajamas ripped and stained with blackberry juice, one soiled slipper upon his foot, the other foot bare and scraped, he continued the chase, with his foil dragging gamely by his side and he trudged on.

Finally he spotted those Ogre good-for-nothings lounging about in a clearing, where one of them was calming eating one of Jennys begonias, one was in the process of flirting with an aging Unseelie wood nymph, and the other two were engaged in what looked like a very primitive game of paper-rock-scissors, in which the only options appeared to be rock and something that could be interpreted as stick or knife interchangeably, one finger sticking out that was sometimes crushed by rock, and other times stabbed the other Ogre in the chest. After the latter option, the two would proceed to tussle on the ground for a while before continuing. None of them looked up as Oglethorpe limped into the clearing.

Now, imagine if you will, dear readers, what our good friend must look like at this point. Clothed only in ill-used pajamas and a single soggy, muddy, worn out old slipper, dragging a rusting fencing foil behind him with great effort, limping terribly at the pain in his knees, frightfully out of breath, and mad as a bumblebee in an ink-well at the whole band of Ogres. He drew forth his foil with great a great deal of show, and raised it over his headand the Ogres all fell to the ground laughing hysterically. Well, this angered Oglethorpe beyond reason, for not only had they been peeping at his true loves underthings, not only had they interrupted his peaceful cup of tea, not only had they made him loose his slipper as they ran off with the stolen flower pots, but now, now noble readers, they were laughing at him! This was it for Oglethorpe. He became like a man possessed, his vision clouded over with red, and he tore into the Ogres like a tiger with a kidney stone, howling in fury like no mortal man has ever howled.

He flew at them with his fencing foil, and when the dust finally cleared, the Ogres were all laying upon the ground, stunned, while Oglethorpe beat at them with his fencing foil. After thoroughly smacking them around with his foil, Oglethorpe proceeded to box the Ogres ears. He then calmly picked up the remaining flower pots, and made his way home to his cottage, where Jenny had been standing and waiting for him for the past hour. With great pomp, Oglethorpe handed her the flowers, before collapsing into his chair. Jenny brought him another cup of tea, some clean pajamas, fresh bandages for his scratches, a pan of cool, fresh water for his feet, and, all worn out from his bad day, Oglethorpe fell into the most pleasant nap of his life.