Summary

In Chapter 1 of Part 2, the reader learns that King’s Thursday has been the seat of the Earls of Pastmaster since the reign of Bloody Mary, and has been untouched by renovation, improvement or modern conveniences due to lack of funds and general lethargy. Recognized as the finest piece of domestic Tudor in England, it is a landmark and talking point in which the whole of Hampshire County takes pride. When the current earl, Bobby Pastmaster, is compelled to sell, Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde, flush with money from her illicit enterprises, buys him out and immediately sets about rebuilding. Professor Otto Friedrich Silenus, a German architect of bizarre tastes and design, creates a monstrosity, composed of a very strange design and materials.

Analysis

In Chapter 1, the author takes aim at yet another traditional vanity of the British aristocracy— the excessive pride in their ancestral home, even when...