There's a crashtinkle as the front door flies open and slams against the wall, the little window shattering. Everyone watches nervously (or drunkenly, or somewhere in between) as a smallish, round-faced man with a pet caterpiller crawling across his upper lip. He's dressed in a nondescript baby poop brown suit over a vertically striped shirt with high, starched white collar and an extrawide tie handpainted with an image of the same man in the same suit, shirt, tie, and caterpiller, but instead of a clipboard, the man on the tie is holding a concertina.

As for that clipboard, brown suit fumbles through the pile of papers on it and says "I'm the health department. Is there a Mr. E. Jay Lonesome here?" Leej is about to duck behind the cash register when the man fixes an ironic eye on him. "Are you Mr. Lonesome?" The caterpiller on his lip bounces up and down as he speaks.

"Actually, that's Mr. Jay," Lonesome says, deciding to face the music. "Lonesome E. Jay, at your service. What can I do for you?"

"Actually, it's what I can do for you that's important." He pauses and the caterpiller sits still for a moment, but resumes its dance as the man speaks again, "I have about thirty violations of the health code here against this place--from wrestling matches in the food supply to flamingo poop in the hot tub and serving vile black stuff to a crazy union organizer with...I can hardly believe this...a potato stuffed up his butt? I suppose the potato ended up in your Mulligatawny?

"I might add," he added, "that I have additional powers as follows: I have been deputized by the Department of Fish and Game

"In addition," he adds, "I have also been deputized by the vice squad who are very concerned about some of the activities here, coincidentally some of the same activities cited in the health department claims, to wit nude wrestling including mixed sex tag team matches, themselves violations even if they hadn't taken place in a tub of jellow."

Leej's distress was contagious: the entire population of the pub, human and otherwise, stared at the official with his dancing caterpiller, who continued, "In my capacity as a pro tem immigration agent, I'm going to have to charge you with harboring illegal aliens..."

"Aliens?"

"What else would you call a bunch of Australians and Irish and Germans and Icelanders?"

"Uh, friends?"

"Ah hah! So you admit you know them! There's also the matter," he said, waving a badge from the National Wildlife Commission and an ID card from the SPCA, "of illegal possession of wildlife, to wit, flamingos. And the moral majority is VERY concerned about the depraved activities of someone named Cleigh O'Possum--is there someone here of that name?"

"Wait!" Leej shouted. "I've heard enough. Take me away. Lock me up in a prison cell and throw the key away. It's all true. Oh, the shame! Radio Shack will probably take my franchise...but at least in prison I won't be so lonesome..."

The caterpiller shaped itself into a squiggle as the round-faced faced man sneered, "Ah, quitcher bawlin' and draw me a Guiness." He stuffed the clipboard under his coat, and when his hand came out he was holding a concertina. "Who wants to sing along on "Finnegan's Wake?"

--seed(with apologies to RiGGy)