The following is intended for bizarre audiences only.

Welcome to the Midnight Library.

Now dumb, is that sea salt ice man? Is the captain here? Has he delivered the lady?

I can't detect her.

Good morning, Mr. Darling. Yes, the captain was here and no, the lady is not.

The captain and I spent the night comparing prognostications.

I wondered why I detected your special perfume. Confession, isn't that the name of it?

Do you know, darling? I've begun to suspect that you have a bit of blood hound in you.

Perhaps we should have you test, too. I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, madam.

Uh-huh.

Get up. Get up, you lazy freak. It's almost six o'clock.

If you're not on that stage in five minutes, I'm going to come in that cage and whip you to pieces.

Oh, please put your whip away, sir. Mr. Pendle, please, I mean ring master. I'll make sure she's on time.

We all want a good show, sir. We all want what's best.

Cry's a small voice. Ring master was the title, Pendle insisted on, but wasn't entitled to.

You get her ready, good face, or you're getting the whip, too.

Said the horrid little round men in dingy red striped trousers, as he slashed his bulwip across

the rusty iron bars of the rectangular cage, then stomped away, spitting and grumbling about freaks

and money. The ever-present pungent cloud of sweat and whiskey fading away with him.

Natasha, Natasha's sweetheart, please wake up, or he's going to punish us all.

Please, the young woman, as she eases the heavy iron has, over its crusty loop on the unlocked

door of the resting enclosure. Beneath a heaped pile of spent yellow straw, the lie the dreaming woman

...