11:15

Edward couldn’t quite remember a time when he had been more astonished. There had been that affair with the Polynesians cannibals in the Egyptian ruins — well they hadn’t technically been cannibals, but they had tried to eat him — but he had already begun to suspect their presence before the unfortunate cookpot episode. ANd of course there was the time he had walked in on the peculiar mating rituals of the so-call Llama gods; that had been perhaps a bit less astonishing and a bit more disturbing, but nonetheless.

Still the sight of the beaver wrapped up in what looked suspiciously like a silk smoking jacket, sipping what could only be a martini and smirking pompously at him from a makeshift throne of cushions and blankets, could only be accurately described as astonishing.

Edward sat uncomfortably at the base of his “lordship’s” altar and looked around the room for the fifth time. It, in as much as Edward’s research had revealed, seemed that all the players of this little farce had gathered. He shook his ears vigorously with an audibly thwop and, for just a moment, imagined he saw that ridiculous beaver take a long suck from an equally ridiculous pipe. But as he quickly glanced back, the beaver’s hands held only what was most definitely a martini.

Seeing that he had Edwards attention, the beaver’s smirk broke into an open grin and he delicately drew the impaled olive out of his drink and plucked the briny fruit off the toothpick with his gleaming incisors and then downed the rest of the drink.

“Welcome old… friend.”