You know me, you can't resist, devil's grip, the iron fist, a play in one-half act

Characters
Miss Prunella Vulgaris, The Duchess of Hammer-on-Dulcimer, esteemed member of the Peonage
Juan, The Earl of Valdez, less esteemed member of the Peonage
Lemmy, noted baritone bassist & collector of blow-em-up baubles
Fryer Bungy, English conjurer & skillet gourmand

When we last left our intrepid Peonage, Christmas was nine kinds of crazy, but when we last last left our not-that-intrepid Peonage because how intrepidish is working in the Museum of Palimpsest Oddities really, not very now that your humble playwright thinks about it, they had won the famous Fabergé Potato from the Czar. Anyway, the Towering Slab, interior, though as always it's hard to tell blah blah blah, DUCHESS and EARL are complaining about something, as always blah blah blah.

EARL: Verily, that band sucks. 

DUCHESS: Your crassness is -- great Caesar's ghost! The Fabergé Potato!

EARL: Gone! All gone! No turkey! No turkey sandwiches! No turkey salad! No turkey gravy! Turkey hash! Turkey a la king! Or gallons of turkey soup! Gone, all gone!

EARL feints faints. DUCHESS revives him by dousing him with the heated elixir of St. Drogo.

EARL: What the fuck, man.

DUCHESS: No time for complaining, Dr. Jones. If that Potato falls into the wrong hands, it could finance weeks, nay, months of supervillainy.

EARL: There can be only one person of interest.

DUCHESS: You listen to way too many wax cylinder procedurals.

EARL: Back to Siberia 'tis.

DUCHESS and EARL use their network of contacts to commandeer transport to the continent. As you no doubt correctly guessed, they have no contacts, but they do have a couple of guineas, a give-em-hell attitude & after crossing the channel, a serious bout of seasickness.

DUCHESS: I knew I shouldn't have eaten that shellfish before we left.

EARL: Someone's coming! Hide!

DUCHESS: Someone's always coming, we're in the middle of Paris.

FRYER: Le halt! Who goes there!

DUCHESS and EARL: Merde!

FRYER: Bloody 'ell, I'm jus' kiddin', ya bird n' bloke. I be Fryer Bungy, a conjurer & right citizen o' the Crown, like ye selves. Come wit' me if ye wan'a live.

FRYER BUNGY takes DUCHESS and EARL to his secret hideout hidden secretly in the Rue Morgue. The sickly stench of death is overpowered by the sickly stench of whatever cast iron slop he's conjuring in his crusty pan.

EARL: So, what straunge beast is after us? The Terminator? An Ourang-Outang?

FRYER: Who stole the Fabergé Potato. You seek who stole the Fabergé Potato.

DUCHESS: You know him?

FRYER: Mmm. Take you to him, I will. Yes, yes. But now, we must eat. Come. Good food.

Skeptical as they are, DUCHESS and EARL were surprised that the foul-smelling slime was indeed good. Naive as they are, DUCHESS and EARL would have been surprised that the foul-smelling slime was also magicked but since they were passed out, their surprise awoke only when they did, as prisoners in some prison.

FRYER: The Iron Chancellor was once the learner, but now he is the master!

FRYER exits, locks the door behind him, one of those real loud locks, the tumbler rumbling like Prussian artillery or the digestive track after a run to Taco Bell.

EARL: That rat bastard. He must be spellcasting for the Czar!

DUCHESS (exasperated): Don't you ever pay attention?

EARL gets up, looking past the window bars at the too-green grass.

EARL: Not enough snow, & it's not as cold as it should be.

DUCHESS: Clevelandia?

LEMMY (gruffly): Deutschland.

DUCHESS: And you are --

LEMMY steps forward from the jailhouse shadows.

LEMMY (gruffly with an extra dollop of gusto): Someone who's come to steal something, something very valuable, & no one is gonna stand in me way. Not these bars --

Dramatic pause.

LEMMY: Not even you.