...The whole thing smells pretty queer to me," said Fatlip, as he inhaled the acrid fumes of his nose-pipe. "I'm meaning the way Mr. Bugger is throwing this big bash when for years he's not so much as offered a piece o' moldy cheese to his neighbors."

The listeners nodded silently, for this was certainly the case. Even before Dildo's "strange disappearance" he had kept his burrow at Bug End guarded by fierce wolverines, and in no one's memory had he ever contributed a farthing to the Boggietown Annual Mithril Drive for Homeless Banshees. The fact that no one else ever had either did not excuse Dildo's famed stinginess. He kept to himself, nurturing only his nephew and a mania for dirty Scrabble.

"And that boy of his, Frito," added bleary-eyed Nat Clubfoot, "as crazy as a woodpecker, that one is." This was verified by Old Poop of Backwater, among others. For who hadn't seen young Frito, walking aimlessly through the crooked streets of Boggietown, carrying little clumps of flowers and muttering about "truth and beauty" and blurting out silly nonsense like "Cogito ergo boggum?"...


..."This'll be one fireworks display they won't forget," cackled the ageing boggie to Goodgulf, who was puffing his cigar rather uncomfortably in a chair of tasteless elvish-modern. The floor around it was littered with four-letter Scrabble arrangements.

"I am afraid that you must alter your plans for them," said the Wizard, unsnagging a clot of tangled hair in his long, dirty-gray beard. "You cannot use extermination as a method for settling your petty grudges with the townspeople."

Dildo studied his old friend with shrewd appraisal. The old Wizard was robed in a threadbare magician's cloak long out of fashion, with a few spangles and sequins hanging precariously at the ragged hems. On his head was a tall, battered conical hat sloppily covered with glow-in-the-dark cabalistic signs, alchemical symbols, and some off-color dwarfish graffiti, and in his gnarled, nail-bitten hands was a bent length of silvered maggotwood that served doubly as a "magic" wand and backscratcher. At this moment Goodgulf was using it in its second office as he studied the worn toes of what in these days would be taken for black basketball sneakers. Hightops.

"Looking a little down-at-the-heels, Gulfie," chuckled Dildo. "Slump in the old Wizard racket, eh?"

Goodgulf looked pained at the use of his old school nickname, but adjusted his robes with dignity. "It is no fault of mine that unbelievers ridicule my powers," he said. "My wonders will yet again make all gape and quail!" Suddenly he made a pass with his scratcher and the room was plunged into darkness. Through the blackness Dildo saw that Goodgulf's robes had become radiant and bright. Odd letters appeared mysteriously on the front of his robe, reading in elvish, Will Thee Kiss Me in the Dark, Baby? Just as suddenly the light returned to the comfortable burrow, and the inscription faded from the conjurer's breast. Dildo rolled his eyes upward in his head and shrugged...


"We boggies are a hairy folk
Who like to eat until we choke.
Loving all like friend and brother,
And hardly ever eat each other.

Ever hungry, ever thirsting.
Never stop till belly's bursting.
Chewing chop and pork and muttons,
A merry race of boring gluttons.

Sing: Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Gobble,gobble,gobble,gobble.

Boggies gather round the table,
Eat as much as you are able.
Gorge yourselves from moon till noon
(Don't forget your plate and spoon).

Anything edible, we've got dibs on,
And hope we all die with our bibs on.
Ever gay, we'll never grow up,
Come! And sing and play and throw-up!

Sing: Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Gobble,gobble,gobble,gobble...."


...At that moment there was a commotion at the head table, where Frito should have been sitting as a guest of honor. Uncle Dildo was standing on his bench and making motions for quiet, wishing to make his after-dinner speech. After a flurry of jeers and the knocking together of a few heads, every fuzzy, pointed ear and glass eye strained to catch what Dildo had to say.

My fellow boggies, he said, my fellow Poops and Peristalts, Barrelgutts and Hangbellies, Needlepoints, Liverflaps, and Nosethingers. (Nosefingers! corrected an irate drunk who, true to his family name, had it jammed into his nostril to the fourth joint.)

I hope you have all stuffed yourselves until you are about to be sick. This customary greeting was met with traditional volleys of farting and belching, signifying the guest's approval of the fare.

I have lived in Boggietown, as you all know, most of my life, and I have developed opinions of you all, and before I leave you all for the last time, I want to let you all know what you have all meant to me. The crowd yelled approval, thinking that now was the time for Dildo to distribute the expected gifts among them. But what followed surprised even Frito, who looked at his uncle with shocked admiration. He had dropped his pants.

The riot that followed had best be left to the reader's imagination, lame thought it may be. But Dildo, having prepared by prearranged signal to touch off the fireworks, diverted the rage of the townsboggies. Suddenly there came a deafening roar and a blinding light. Bellowing with fright, the vengeful boggies hit the dirt as the cataclysmic tumult thundered and flashed around them. The noise died down, and the braver members of the lynch mob looked up in the hot wind that followed at the little hill where Dildo's table had stood. It was not there any longer. Nor was Dildo...


..."Sorhed!" cried Frito. "But Sorhed is no more."

"Don't believe everything you hear from the heralds," said Dildo gravely. "It had been thought that Sorhed was forever destroyed at the Battle of Brylopad, but it appears this was just wishful thinking. Actually he and his Nine Nozdrul slipped out of the mopping-up cleverly disguised as a troupe of gypsy acrobatic dancers. Escaping through the Ngaio Marsh, they pushed their way into the suburbs of Fordor, where the property values dropped like a paralyzed falcon. From Fordor they have been renewing their strength ever since."

"His Dark Carbuncle of Doom has swollen and soon will come to a head, covering the face of Lower Middle Earth with his ill humors. If we are to survive, the boil must be soundly lanced before Sorhed begins his own loathsome squeeze play."

"But how can this be done?" said Frito.

"We must keep him from the one thing that can mean victory," said Goodgulf. "We must keep from him the Great Ring!"

"And what is this ring?" said Frito, eyeing the possible exits from the hole.

"Cease thy eyeing of possible exits and I will tell thee," Goodgulf reprimanded the frightened boggie...


...A most horrible treasure, this Great Ring," said Frito.

"And a horrible burden for he who bears it," said Goodgulf, "for some unlucky one must carry it from Sorhed's grasp into danger and certain doom. Someone must take the ring to the Zazu Pits of Fordor, under the evil nose of the wrathful Sorhed, yet appear so unsuited to his task that he will not soon be found out."

Frito shivered in sympathy for such an unfortunate.

"Then the bearer should be a complete and utter dunce," he laughed nervously.

Goodgulf glanced at Dildo, who nodded and casually flipped a small, shining object into Frito's lap. It was a ring.

"Congratulations," said Dildo somberly. "You've just won the booby prize"...