... sit back for a while, and let the activities that Erroll had set in motion continue.
Bugs had watched PEST's rapid growth from the beginning. He knew that Marketing was the way to riches. He knew that if he could come up with the new corporate slogan, he'd have the world in his hands. Dream up a good one. Then, he'd trademark, copyright, and patent it. "Ha!", thought Bugs. "That'll fix 'em. I'll fix it so that anytime they use the slogan, they'll have to pay me a royalty. Bwaaahahahahahaha. Erroll's not the ONLY smart guy around here!"
Meanwhile, in an almost deserted animal hospital a few miles away ...
Rear Admiral had passed out from loss of blood. The mini-sword wound in his neck was still oozing blood, even though his engineer's hat was doing a decent job of plugging the gaping hole. His ribs hurt horribly from having been backed into by a car. Worse yet, his suspenders hung loosely around his engineer's uniform as a result of being suspended in a tree. Admiral would hate to be seen this way. He took great pride in his profession, and wouldn't want anybody to think that railroad engineers dress sloppily.
Rear came to intermittently for a few minutes, then passed out again. This time, he was able to stay awake a few minutes longer.
Rear wondered why Muffy had deserted him. She had seemed like such a caring gal. They had so much in common.
He thought back over those crazy moments when he had imagined a talking mouse named "Ben". "Phew!", thought Rear. "This blood loss really affected my head."
He surveyed his surroundings. [Editor's note: Wait a minute! He's a railroad engineer, not a new home construction engineer. How about "he looked around"?]
He looked closely at the desk next to the cage where he thought he had seen that mouse named Ben. There was one of those awards like they give away at annual corporate dinners. "That's weird", thought Admiral. "It looks like a hamster."
He read the inscription beneath the hamster-like image.
"Best animal trainer, PEST 1998".
The door burst open, and in walked ... |
