Horace looked at his watch wondering what was keeping Medusa. He was entertaining very important guests; the coterie of bankers bankrolling the south by betting short; they’d make a fortune once the north blew the Confederacy to pieces. Expecting a sudden decisive blow, these southern gentlemen had made handshake deals with the Jewish devils running Wall Street. The saintly blacks could never win. The system was rigged against them. The lucky few that made a few million in a lifetime; good for them. Life went on prosperously; Horace stood at the bay window watching the circular drive, spying Medusa in the slow moving mule cart half naked and a wreck, the cart driven by a snappy bright looking boy. With them were Dr. Philo; healer, prognosticator, chemist, notary &c. and Periwinkle Matthews his brilliant teenage assistant. The stranger was brawny and Horace thought he would be all over Medusa. She was ignoring ****** because he kind of ****** her off but he’d been trying to help. She could forgive him. He was big. Horace was puny. Horace saw that too. He immediately ran downstairs to have it out with his wayward soon-to-be betrothed. Medusa wanted nothing to do with him or anyone else and left the room upon coming into the mansion. That left Philo, Periwinkle & ******. Horace didn’t know any of them by sight but Philo was expected. “Dr. Philo, I presume,” said Horace thrusting his hand out to anyone.
“Name’s ******. I work for your fiance.”
Horace’ eyebrows raised nearly off his head. “You...you...in what capacity may I ask?”
“I’m her bodyguard,” said ****** flatly looking the guy right in the eyes.
“Okay, okay,” said Whoreson throwing up the hand; “I guess somebody’s got to...” he was going to say something racist but he wasn’t feeling it just then. He poured himself a shot of brandy and took  a breathe. Turning he said, “Let’s try this again. Dr. Philo?” he put to them.
“That would be me,” said Philo in bow-tie and round rimmed glasses. He had a big head and it was all brain; Philo had also studied in the far east; not as a child as had ****** but as a full-grown scholar and renowned academic; he’d fallen on hard times reduced to selling patent medicines, only offering his choicest goods to those who could afford to pay for the rarity. Not mere snake oil, which Medusa used for moisturizer, but all kind of potions, elixirs and concoctions. Some from his own portable makeshift lab; some from unnamed and best left unknown sources. An alchemist and chemist Philo was known on more than one occasion to produce a living Homunculus; monstrous as it turned out to be in the end. The experiences led Philo to believe Man was never meant to create subordinate lifeforms; he’d proselytize when he had half a notion to or could take a break from hustling and bustling to survive. Philo had a live one in Horace Horatio Whoreson; a man who didn’t see his bride-to-be as the grotesque gorgon that she was; worshiping her like a goddess as did every other man. Except ****** who annoyingly insisted on treating her like a frail woman. He now was her bodyguard; she hadn’t had any say over it. Goddess from ancient days or no, ****** was going to watch Medusa’s ***. There was something about it; he’d smelled it when she stepped out of the busted carriage; a heady funk that caught in one’s nose and clung there for days; ****** could never forget that smell and he’d always associate it with Medusa; she was the only...his reverie was broken by a little black girl with a colorful rag tied on her head; she was cute and shiny and spoke like, I don’t know, a minstrel show; anyway, here goes; dialect: “Missuh,” she said politely.