Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader decided that he would take along a Flashman book to read during his little weekend getaway. He wound up taking Flashman’s Lady.

Now, your Maximum Leader has had “Flashman’s Lady” on the shelf marked “to be read” for a while. He doesn’t know how he skipped it (since it is a fairly early Flashy book)… Regardless… He picked it up and started reading.

Well… Guess what? Due to a printing error two pages of the book are not to be found. Page 43/44 and page 87/88. These pages appear to not have been printed. (To be clear, the pages are skipped, they have not been removed.)

Your Maximum Leader was so put out by this he actually called Plume Books (a Division of Penguin Books) and complained. He was informed that he should take the books back to the place of purchase to exchange them. Your Maximum Leader - today - with is aching back (another story) - went to Borders to exchange the book… Guess what? The other copy of Flashman’s Lady has the same printing error. To your Maximum Leader’s chagrin, the Borders person said that he wouldn’t send the book back to the publisher. The book didn’t seem ‘damaged’ enough to warrant a return to the publisher. Your Maximum Leader protested that two friggin pages of the bleedin’ book were missing and that any sensible person would feel put out by the inconvenience of it all.

Your Maximum Leader’s protestations came to naught. Your Maximum Leader damned the eyes of the bookseller and departed. He made careful note of the bookseller’s name - so that when the Mike World Order comes that person can be liquidated.

If any kindly minions reading this happen to have intact copies of “Flashman’s Lady” handy and wouldn’t mind copying/faxing or scanning/e-mailing the pages to him; he appreciate it very much.

By the way… Outside of Flashy, your Maximum Leader hadn’t heard many people using the expression “Damn your eyes!” If you haven’t heard it, try listening to Johnny Cash’s song “Sam Hall.” Great little song.

Carry on.