The rumpus over my death is far too celebratory, and the rumor far too exaggerated. Pray, calm yourselves, lest Mom overhear and be set back four thousand posts by an onslaught of irremediable grief.

I was commenting that in the grand array of Rapaire's many skills are included tap-dancing as well as the infamous cross-over performance of the Dance of the Thousand Veils. He calls on the tap-dancing to cover up the fact that in doing the latter, for reasons he has never answered for, the Veils of Discretion and of Good Taste are always misplaced and never easily found until some 998 OTHER Veils have been shown and duly penetrated. Their names are legion and their hems higher, and their virtues much lower, than the two he pretends to invoke here. Yet he seems to prefer any of the 998 to these last two.

Perhaps he will some day enlighten us as to why this is.


A