What have I done thins time?" he paused to ask before continuing with his oral expedition about her body: her husband, the intrepid explorer.

Ever since her trip with Alexia to Scotland, Mrs. Tunstell had rather a taste for foreign travel. Alexia blamed it on the kilts.

Someone was trying to kill Lady Alexia Maccon. It was most inconvenient, as she was in a dreadful hurry. Given her previous familiarity with near-death experiences and their comparative frequency with regards to her good self, Alexia should probably have allowed extra time for such a predictable happenstance.

Scotsmen, she had occasion to observe, often did have nice knees. Perhaps that was why they insisted upon kilts.

Which was why, some six hours later, Alexia Maccon's daughter was born inside the head of an octomaton in the presence of her husband, a comatose werewolf dandy, and a French inventor.

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.

Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.